My dad was in that war while I was a baby. He came home, but none of us survived emotionally. I cry watching these films, for everyone, and hope to see my dad among the faces. I'm 82 now, watching from Montana, USA.
From waaaay Upstate NY (100Km S of Montreal) - My Dad was farther North 1945/46 and was Military Governor of small German town. I was 2+yrs old when he first saw me. RIP+Larry. 1985. - BTW Around 5:45, The US Captain with the CIB returns the salute, but doesn't seem to have much "Gemuetlichkeit" to share.😕
I see a lot of soldiers from all sides smiling in this video because they have just survived the worst global conflict in human history. A very logical reaction.
Not quite the reason, it wasn't so much relief at surviving military conflict. This withdrawal from Prague where they tortured and slaughtered 20,000 of the local civilian population meant they were firstly leaving behind their crimes and retribution from an immanent successful civilian uprising, and second were surrendering into the hands of US Army who would treat them far better than the advancing Soviet Army.
By the same deepstate people who created the 20th century disasters. Not just in Europe. Laos, Cambolia, Vietnam, Korea, Irak, Afganistan, Serbia etc...And now they want to force the whole world against the Russians to save the USD and their economy. Son of a bitches
@@benedictearlson9044 then you interpret their laughs falsely. for sure there were some among them that may have smiled because of what you wrote. otherwise your claim has absolutely no ground. ordinary wehrmacht soldiers were by majority not involved in what you wrote ( this was done by SS units that operated at the back of the front line). where those wehrmacht soldiers innocent? probably not. were they responsible for the incredible atrocities that happened behind the front lines? for sure not. you really have to get your history straight here, because you throw every person with a uniform into one pot and that does absolutely not reflect the reality. and of course there were common soldiers that were part of the atrocities that happened, but its wrong to blame an entire army for that. please read at least into basic information, its not that hard to find out about an overall picture of "who did exactly what". read the wiki article of the wehrmacht and the ss, this would be a good point to start, because responsibilities are handled quite well in these articles ( at least in the german articles). for example it were the so called SS-Totenkopfverbände ( "SS-Deathskullcompanies") that were responsible for the deportation of jews, communists, sinti asoasf - they were a special division within the SS, because they tried to hide as good as they could what they were doing. also the ghetto in warsow was run by the SS - another example. no ordinary wehrmacht soldier ever did duty there. every concentration camp was run by the SS, again no ordinary german soldiers did duty there - there was a secret to be kept and guarded... as i said: get your history straight. i cannot believe this comment has 23 likes without anyone pointing out that you are very wrong in your interpretation, which shows that people are willing to believe whatever is written on the internet without any proof or evidence. please note that im not trying to whitewash the wehrmacht or what was done at all. but history is not a fairytale - and thats what you are trying to make out of it.
@@Stranger7_7 KOBA ( well knows as osipa vissarionovici djugaj villy ) every times WISHed the war and everytimes he wined The ww2 wishs and wins Berlin bolckade 1946, he wished and wins The COLD WAR, 1947 he wished and wined ( sic !) The KOREAN WAR, 1950 -1952 he wished the war and wined GREEK CIVILIAN WAR, 1954-1956, koba wished the war and LOST The hightes dangerous war in CUBA, 1959, Nikita Krushceva wished and wined the war Don't 'forget the ROCKETS CRISIS octumbre de 1962, when all depended of one soviet man to press a buton INDOCKINESE WAR,,1964--1973 ( Vi Et Nam ) soviet leaders wish and win the war CAMBOGIAN WAR, most cruel the war in the, the soviet leaders wish and win the war All african war as Angola, etc wars, soviet wished and winwd the war AFGANISTAN 1979, brejneva leonid vissarion wished and wined the war If I forget one, war help me please
My oldest aunt's brother-in-law was killed in Czechoslovakia 3 days before the war ended. He was a tank commander in the 401st Tank Battalion. It seems that while on patrol, his tank slid off the road and overturned, presumably crushing him. He had survived from the beaches at Normandy only to die in an accident 3 days before the war ended. Life can be so unfair at times.
My wife's uncle was the last American soldier killed in Europe at the very end (last day) of WWII. He was killed in Czechoslovakia by German ambush when they did not know the war ended. His name was PFC Charlie Havlat of Nebraska. His father emigrated from Czech before WWII. Yes he was Czech American.
Thats a bummer. My grandfather survived the WWII fighting in chetnik ranks and then in a penitentiary squad on first lines in Bosnia where they were charging the retreating Germans and expelling them from the country somewhere along the line his position was hit with a shell, SS troops along with Handzar collaborationists slaughtered everyone who was remaining while he was thrown by the blast away and rolled down the hill getting to be rescued and hospitalised in a part of Croatia until the end of the war. He died in 2019 age 95.
thats unbelievable.. so very sad. but if you dont mind, i would like to thank your family for your sacrifice.. because without American support me , my children, and my grandchildren would'nt even exist.. because Germany would of eventually invaded Britain, so my 12 year old mother probably would never have survived.. so , i realise it doesnt help much, but your family's sacrifice literally saved about 12 lives in my family.. and for that i am eternally grateful
@stephenbartley8133. What do you mean? Just look how germany treated the french during occupation. Im sure your family would have been fine. Unless you mean britain not surrendering and germany making it to the shore of the island. Though britain would have probably surrendered if the nazis actually made it over the canal
My Uncle was in a POW camp in Eastern poland. When the Russians came close the Germans fled. Most of the POWs decided to wait, but my Uncle who was from the wilds of Scotland and a Scots Guard decided to go West to see what he could find hoping to meet up with advancing British troops. Well after a couple of months and many miles , in April 1945 he came across an American unit. They shouted at him, and his broad Scots accents was mistaken for German so they shot at him ! Luckily it was just a flesh wound ! He suffered from lung illness because when he was captured in Italy in 1943 the Germans beat him so badly he had breathing problems, and when he eventually went to hosptial in 1945 he had a lung removed. He smoked role your own ciggies in spite of his lung problems. He died in 1976.
Why would the Germans put an Allied soldier in a POW camp in Eastern Poland ? There were concentration camps & so-called death camps in E. Poland, but no POW camps for Western Allied Troops....though there may have been camps there for Russian POWs.
At Aarnham my great Uncle pretended too be dead when operation market garden failed and he ended up on a road all this squad killed......Germans passed him and then he slide into the river and escaped. he died I think 1960s
@@68scorpion68 So it was not an occupation, the Czechs were still led by the Czechs, unlike the German ones, where the protectorate was led by a protector. and it was German. At that time, the enemies of the empire were arrested and murdered. The Germans killed or executed during the occupation , ie from 1938 to 1945, ! 343 thousand ! Czech civilians. After 1968, 72 people lost their lives here. These people were not executed, they were killed in the first days of the occupation, or at a time when there were Soviet troops, ie in 20 years. Your statement is in line with current efforts to change history.
My dad was a medic and part of the 508th medical collection company now called Mash. I remember he told me when the got to the Rhine River below Remagen Germany and crossed, if the wind was right you could smell the Germans. He said when they crossed the Rhine on a Bailey Bridge after The Remagen Bridge finally failed and fell into the river, his unit picked up more wounded German Soldiers than American Soldiers. They were in pitiful shape and the fight was out of them. I also remember him telling me that most of these Whermacht Soldiers were tradesmen before the war. Finish Carpenters, Masons, electricians, shoemakers, tin smiths. They were friendly and offered service to the U.S. Army in any way they could before being rounded up and shipped to the rear to be held in a POW camp. He said several were very very good cooks and what they served beat the hell out of the Army Chow.
It's meaningful to hear what those who were there have to say. It must be an enormous relief when war ends and soldiers can go back to being just people, people who would never have killed if not for the war. My brother was a medic who served 2 tours in Vietnam, so your father has a little special meaning to me. Bless you.
Greetings from Germany. My granddad told me, that they didn't concern the Americans to be enemies. Lots of Germans had relatives in the States who emigrated there. The one ideological enemy where the soviets.
That's utter rubbish. Your grandfather was telling you lies. Read some history books about the war - and the war at sea in the Atlantic and the Western front.
@@brianhammer5107 In a history book you find anything about operations and the generals who masterminded them. You find nothing about the ordinary soldiers and their lives. The war at the sea is not covered in that video and my granddad didn't serve in the navy. But propably you should consider talking to people first hand before you insult others.
@@brianhammer5107 So wasn't my granddad. He was simply there when things took place. But I'm sure you know more people who served in the Heer than I do.
@@lukewagner5492 Look, sorry your grandfather may have had guilty feelings later and didn't tell you the whole truth - but the German soldiers were fighting for a horrid, brutal, Nazi regime and there is no denying that. A lot of them committed atrocities. There is no getting around that. Germany was a great nation that went mad for a while. Today, the kids are brought up in a free and rational state. The 30's were NOT such a time.
Probably about half of the US soldiers were of German descent. It is also true that fighting men generally respect one another. It is when the support and administrative and military police units show up that things get bad.
It's more amazing how black soldiers shed blood for their countries still were treated like 2nd class citizens. Even the enemy soldiers were treated better.
All my uncles and dad fought in WWII. My dad said the war was such a relief to them because they were all starving to death (uneducated share croppers) during the Great Depression and this gave them dependable stable employment. Two of my uncles made a career in the military 20+ years.
@@austint7533 , Ironically, after starting my own career, I had by accident and unknowingly returned to Clarksville, TX (Red River County), where my grandparents had lived, to work. Then even by the remotest coincidence, I met via business, a man named Powel Peek, a farmer, very elderly, with a large real estate holding. As he and I were in discussion related business, he asked me about my family, background, being triggered by my last name. I shared what little I knew. He then informed me, he thought my family had worked for his father in the 1870’s until 1930’s. He was little older than my father (1918), I reached out to my dad and he confirmed, this was the family they had worked for. My understanding is my grandparents had immigrated from TN to TX after the Civil War, very poor, uneducated with limited skills trying to survive. Peeks were a wealthy white family and were a means to survival until WWII. My own father quit school after 7th grade (1925), farming until 1941. Have read and seen documentaries of this area of the South during this period and seen few blacks in the area. Today, blacks make up a probably 35% percent, of country population. Where I was born and raised in remote West TX, a black man was a rare sight also. We had two black families in the whole county (Upton). Extremely remote rural areas and blacks were too smart to live there. We watched MLK, in his prime on TV nightly. What we observed was the exact opposite of what we lived. The Blacks we knew were hard workers, honest, respected and good athletes (football), family people. They had lives equal to the area whites. So racism was unknown and to see MLK and those events, were strange to us as children, We lived hard lives, survival a focus. The Mexican population was much larger (15%+) than the blacks and increasing daily (wet backs, few, if any, spoke English, attended school, except for the few). Different times and thinking. I escaped to university along with my sister. She returned, married and left never to return. I never returned after leaving for college in the early 70’s, doing my best not to visit Vietnam, where I now work, lol. Sorry to bore.
Seems so real in color. Growing up, WW2 was a distant black and white event. I've spent a lot of time in Europe. This could have been filmed yesterday.
@@sandhase8129 Yes, I'm a film buff and there has been color film for a while, but WW2 in my mind is a black and white event. Not until recently has all the color renditions have been showing up. Not the fighting so much.
@@crapisnice These German soldiers here are not even Nazis, they're regular Wehrmacht units. If we follow your logic they would have executed the entire German population.
@@distantthunder12ck55 Why only the German population, shot the whole world! sarcasm - Ayoze you have a very one-sided sick view of things. A little petty. What have the Germans to do with Vietnam and Korea, but in fact the biggest warmongers have been hanging around there. And don't forget the Treaty of Versailles in your reflections.
@@susannesperre9573 What the hell are you talking about? I was defending Germans and Germany in reply to the moron saying they should all have been executed.
00:14 The German tanker displays an interesting service history on his uniform jacket. On the left upper arm can be seen the rank insignia of a Stabsgefreiter which would mean that he was barred from becoming an NCO. Regarding his decorations on the left side of his jacket this appears even more intriguing: He has the ribbon of the Eisernes Kreuz second class and the small red Ordensspange to the right of this could be the medal for the winter fighting in the East 1941/42. A very lucky survivor then? Probably, since he also sports a Nahkampfspange in either bronce for 15 hand to hand fights or in gold for 50! Plus a wound medal in silver meaning he was wounded three or four times.
Thank you for such fascinating insight. I noticed him too but have nothing like your knowledge of insignia. Most interesting to see the camaraderie and lack of malice.
@Kevin McCormack It says nothing about this particular individual, just as membership in the many, many American and other Allied units that committed war crimes (certainly on a much smaller scale) says nothing about individuals in those units.
@Kevin McCormack It's the standard uniform worn by all panzer crewmen. The skull was a different version than the SS skull. Totenkopf was an SS division
5:27 GI on the right wearing SSI for the US 87th Infantry Division, the "Golden Acorn". Thanks for uploading this great color footage from the end of the war in Europe.
What a relief it must have been for all these soldiers knowing they had survived and were going to see their families and wives again. A truly historic moment
Sadly the Russians turned up 2 days later, and all these men where turned over to them. They all were either shot or went off to Russian work camps untill 1954. (that's why the Americans let them keep their uniforms, and metals on) Notice all the Jews in American uniforms, are watching, and listening. American Intelligence was what they were called. Always 50 miles back from the front, untill the smoke cleared! Then they said they were Heros! lol!
The images in this film are very interesting. And I fully understand the joy that many German soldiers seem to show at succeeding in surrendering to the American troops. the history of those units and those soldiers deserves to be known.
Yeah the history of these units deserves to be known for sure, but the same way should be known the history of their poor Soviet, Czech, Polish, Slovakian, French, Serbian etc victims. Imho even more important and interesting is the role of Sudetengermans, who lived in Czechoslovakia back then. My great grand-auntie was German living in Olomouc (german Olmütz). She spoke fluently German and Czech. A very interesting woman tbh.
@@davidknichal6629 You are right. His role in the war must be remembered. There is a certain mythomania with German units. There is a strange fascination for these units that leads to forgetting the criminal nature of the state they served and of which they were instruments. The equidistance between the Reich and the USSR habitually hides anti-communism; the world would not have been the same with a triumph of the Reich, fortunately the allies won, something impossible if the USSR had not been among them.
@@unhappyallthetime8445 ты лгун приведи документы, которые говорят о готовности СССР к вторжению в Германию. Наверно это СССР подошёл к границам Германии.
I fear that we learned only for a generation or two. Look at the parallels between today’s leaders and those in the 1930s. No answers, just observation.
@@neinnein9306 If you look on the map, Gasthof zur Tanne in Tannenbergsthal (Saxony) is in GERMANY, not in Czechoslovakia. Not that far from the border but NOT within Czechoslovakia.
1946 Second grade a new student from Czechoslovakia appeared one day. No one in the class ever realized how thankful he was to be in the US. He finished the 8th grade top of the class and continued at the top of HS and College. He probably loved America more than most in the class. All Americans should love and respect AMERICA.
@@j.kevinmoran9678 Deep respect for your generation... (me: in childhood migrated to NY... from PRC, some years served with DOS in low capacities. during last decade took retirement early, travelled the world, learned German and Russian languages... then understood... it might be a bit late to seriously hold on to that kind of optimism as you just shown. Gives me no pleasure...)
@@mrhaltstop2294 We could be just as brutal. War makes humans that way, but what we did with post war Germany and Japan you have to admire. We weren't conquerors, and we helped rebuild both nations.
What a trip it is seeing all that military in a small European town. I would love to go back in time to witness the grandeur of it all. Needless to say, I wouldn't want to see the horrors, but the amount of firepower and troops will probably never be duplicated seeing how we can unleash so much more destruction with a tenth of the personnel or equipment. I've been part of big deployments, (Desert Storm and others) but WW2 is in a league of it's own.
@@robertstotesbury8005 Who said they did? I said I'd like to see it as a historian. Trust me though, I'm sure they were in awe of the military magnitude coming from those small US towns though in the 1940's when they knew about nothing but their neighbors. I was part of the buildup to Desert Storm and I was impressed. And I wanted to just get home too.
@@teleguy5699 I totally agree that kind of military buildup will never happen again. To go back in time and see it all knowing what we know now would be some experience for sure!
The reaction of a part of the public to these images is really surprising. There are many aspects to be able to comment on these images, but there are people who prefer to attack the Soviets or remember the "communist dictatorship" in Czechoslovakia. There are all kinds of opinions. That is always a positive thing, it is something that allows you to have a debate and perhaps learn from the discussion. Czechoslovakia was a democratic country in 1938. England was primarily responsible for handing over Czechoslovakia to the Third Reich: they sacrificed the Czechoslovaks. Has it been forgotten? Does anyone comment on that? And a small detail that is continually forgotten: in 1939, Poland participated in the invasion of Czechoslovakia and annexed part of the territory. Poland in 1939 was not a democratic country. It was a country that had signed its own Non-Aggression Treaty with the Third Reich. Any comment on this?
it's exactly as you wrote it! (Poland The German Pact "Piłsudski-Hitler" was signed on January 26, 1934). I am Czechoslovak and I know how Britain and France betrayed us and threw us ahead of Hitler. Poland really attacked Czechoslovakia together with Hitler. Even in 1939, after Czechoslovakia was divided into Slovakia and Bohemia, Hungary attacked Slovakia and took over the whole of southern Slovakia! (The Hungarian-Slovak War lasted from April 23 to 4, 1939.)
Rightly or wrongly, “England” was trying to stop a new world war. Now it didn’t work out like that as we all know... Poland’s non aggression pact with the Nazis didn’t work out too well either.
@@marspp Every German pilot shot down in the skies of Spain was one less enemy in the Battle of Britain. The UK government decided that the way to prevent war was by sacrificing Czechoslovakia and Spain. The battle in Spain was lost, but the war was finally won. The misfortune is that Western Europe was liberated by the allies, but Spain, which had been the first to fight, was not liberated.
My father was going back to Hungary from Dresden or Gera(?) on freight train when they got strafed and bombed by P-47-s near that place.He was student, got injured. In a "gasthaus or some townhall(?) was the "Refugee Classification Committee". Czech Army sent a colonel, Russians a captain, USAA just a sergeant. The sergeant did all the work, knew everything, the bigwigs were just practicing upmanship and basically laymans politics, not real work or even hands-on management. Strange that in 1988 I rented a room in Annandale, Va. from a jovial scumbag disbarred lawyer who - as it turned out - flew one of the P-47-s there (at age not yet 20!)...Small world!
Initially that was not the case for the Americans. Remember that the war was still going on in the Pacific. There was a real possibility that the Japanese home islands would have needed to be invaded. If that were the case many of the Americans in Europe were going to be shipped back to the US for retraining and then they would have been sent to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. Fortunately the Pacific war ended without an invasion.
@@joevignolor4u949 I forgot what division it was. But a US infantry division arrived so late in Germany. That it was sent back to the US and was being re-trained to fight in the Pacific.
Many of the German soldiers who surrendered to the Americans were initially very happy that that didn't end up in Russian captivity, however, their original euphoria didn't last for long. Large numbers of German POWs were thrown into open air holding pens by the Americans and British, where they starved and died from lack of shelter and medical care. The Americans and British also turned over large numbers of German POWs to the French. The French used them for slave labor. They probably were still luckier than those taken prisoner by the Soviets but it was certainly no picnic to be taken prisoner by the Americans.
@@MrSloika Remember also the fact that the Dutch and French used orphans from the ruins of German cities to clear the minefields in those countries. As a result, thousands of German orphans were killed clearing mines.
Churchill warned Roosevelt of an iron curtain in east europe. Roosevelt did not listen. Russians had fought germans bravely 1943 to 45.. but they murdered millions. East europe suffered
You do realize the war was not over. Roosevelt knew we needed the Russians if we were going to invade Japan. Manhattan Project was not a certainty. It was a raw deal for sure.
You do realize at that point another war, potentially world war, against the soviet union was just unacceptable. The american people would have revolted at the idea that now as the nazi regime has been defeated more americans need to die in a new war.
25 million Russians died in world war ll Millions in Belarus Ukraine Poland Czech Yugoslavia Greece. Murdered. Horrific deaths most were women and children. Bodies being made into soap. Horrific.
My dad grew up in the village of Tannenbergsthal and told me often that he can remember when he was a kid, that he saw the American soldiers in the meadows and the jeeps and everything. This looks exactly like his description and was filmed very likely on the same occasion. Cant wait to show him this clip. I can identify many of the locations where the scenes were shot. Because this is a remote village not a lot has changed. Thanks for sharing this interesting insight.
The German Unit is not retreating, they are just coming home, in an ordely manner. The Americans are somehow surprised to see the troop in general, clean and disciplined. Things are already becoming hot with the Soviets, who will impose a long dictatorship on Central and Eastern Europe. We are lucky to live in the World we live in today.
Interesting I’ve been watching these films for the last couple of days - I am amazed at state of these German troops and their transports. They still seem to have a lot of trucks, far less horse drawn carriages than expected, also most troops seem to be clean, well fed, not looking defeated, just a little uneasy or some even defiant, with the occasional fraternizing. Not what I expected to see, but have read about in some accounts.
I am not a big history buff, but i believe those are the troops that fought in Czechoslovakia. Quick check of German side reveals that among those men were "elite" troops from • Hermann Goering Panzer Corps • Grossdeutschland Panzer Corps Of course list is bigger. I remember hearing somewhere that Grossdeutschland and Herman Goering Panzer Corps were prioritised for supply and were considered "elite". Perhaps that's why they don't look as tore down as other less prioritised divisions who surrendered. Perhaps someone more informed can enlighten this for both of us.
These guys are strolling around like everybody’s friends the Germans have all their stuff with them except the weapons and they look pretty fresh, the reality of it all is they really were a professional army, you get the impression that the us gi’s were undisciplined, dangerous lot.
People forget that when the war ended, the German formations in the West didn't just dissolve. Well, maybe some SS units (which had retaliation to fear), but otherwise they were still an army. There were formalities to be observed. There was paperwork. There was lots of liaison with senior Allied officers and their field-grade gophers. There was usually a route march to a concentration point (with or without wire -- usually it was unnecessary), and then an orderly muster-out to be seen to -- and the Germans were nothing if not orderly. The other ranks saluted their superiors, and the seniors returned those honors. Discipline was observed, and meted out to looters, equipment thieves, the disorderly, and even some deserters. Most men's steady source of food remained their unit's field kitchens, their shelter the unit's kaserne or field bivouac, until they got leave (and transport) to return home.
Well duh. A gigantic Armed force doesn't just disappear. Especially a well trained force like the Wehrmacht. In fact they were so solid and organized that they formed the core of the modern German Army (Bundeswehr).
The Germans still looked the part . The field gray and stand up collars, crisp epilettes looked smart . After seeing their earth brown uniforms on color footage the Yanks standing next to the men in filed grey must have thought and come to the conclusion ' Hey we look like the red army in that brown shit ' and changed it to green after the fall out with their red allies und their uncle Joe. The infamous fall out aka Berlin blockade came in 1947 resulting in the cold war lasting 44 years . Some victory eh. A hollow victory. Should have just let the Germans do the biz in the east and not get involved . Now , again we have problem with the barbarian hordes of the east. Nothing has changed. The Russians are still the menace they always were.
My uncle died in polland, he was a he was a private who served in a mounted platoon. It’s shocking how different the preparations for the war were in Poland had troops were on a horses meanwhile the Germans forces possessed superior tanks and weapons.. rest and peace uncle..
In fact, on the Western Front the war was not at all the same as on the Eastern Front. On the one hand, an easy walk on a sunny day, and on the other, a typhoon of death.
American soldier is a generous and kind-hearted soldier. Look at these faces! And the civilians, too, seem to be at ease. We did the job and now we aren't enemies anymore. US Army All the Way!
Watching these surrender films makes me proud to be an American. The interractions between the Germans and the Americans seems very casual in these films, and shows our generous nature. They are lucky they were able to surrender to Americans....rather than to the Soviets. And think of how it would have been had we been forced to surrender to them, or the Japanese. Would have been as different as night and day.
As an American and am not proud of this film. As a matter of fact it angers me. Why? While American soldiers were so nice with the enemy who were torturing and killing them they were brutal with black American soldiers who shed blood to defend America.
@@mirquellasantos2716 look everyone, it's a little commie posting in here. Hello little commie. Why don't you rescind your citizenship and move to Venezuela with your comrades? Get a move on!
beautiful pictures of a historical event. Gladly more of it. Not to get into Soviet captivity was the ultimate goal of many troops and south-east Germany.
Unter anderem ist zu sehen der 'Gasthof zur Tanne' in Tannenbergsthal. Hier handelt es sich um einen Ort im Vogtland-Thüringen, nicht in Böhmen. Diesen Gasthof gibt es noch heute.
My fathers unit, the 897th Ordnance HAM Company, 1st Army, was in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia on VE day. They received orders to fall back into Germany shortly thereafter as Czechoslovakia was designated as Russian occupied territory.
True, first western "allies" sold us(Czechoslovakia) to Hitler in 1938, than to Stalin in 1945. That said, many ordinary people supported communist government at first, most of them realized it was mistake after 1948, but it was too late already...
Americans look like beggars and hobos next to the Germans in their handsome, well-fitting uniforms. You would think they are the ones that lost if you went by the neatness of their uniforms. The German uniforms command respect.
For all the uneducated ones in here saying Hugo Boss designed the German uniforms you are completely and totally wrong, Hugo Boss was only awarded the contract to manufacture not design their uniforms, the designers of all German military uniforms including the SS were SS-Oberführer Prof. Karl Diebitsch, and graphic designer Walter Heck, who had no affiliation with the Boss company.
@@lachlanmclennan2188 so did 2 other companies in Germany there's a big difference in claiming that someone designed them and simply manufactured them.
Many pictures are made in Saxonia, Germany. For the Gemans in the Sudetes a very hard time began: expulsions and sometimes death by shooting or forced marches (Brno, Brünner Todesmarsch to the Soviet Occupation Zone of Austria).
Poor, poor Germans. How could they do this to them. In similar situation few years back Germans usually gave Poles about 20 min to leave the house or else.
@@robertcudny1839 Czechs were frustrated from persecutions, executions, mass murders (exc. Ležáky village), germanization and potential annihilation. They linched Germans every day and mass executed them (exc. "Kino Bořislavka massacre", where they shoot them and used truck to crush german bodies).
My great-grandparents had to leave their homeland in the Sudetes in 1946 after having lived there since the 18th century. All the time they lived next door to their Czech neighbors, my grandmother's brother is missing in Russia, he was only 20 years old. She never got over it. It's always the little people who have to make the biggest sacrifices.
@@Katrin-jj3mg It is sad what happened,Germans lived in Sudetenland for a long time and I think that through centuries,we had pretty good relations,but no matter that they lived there for so long,it was always part of our country,Germans had pretty good life in Czechoslovakia,yet they betrayed us and caused fall of our country.
The Germans were notoriously short on fuel at the war's end. Were they given fuel by the Americans to make it home? Just curious to see so many German vehicles still operating.
@@None-zc5vg One would have thought that most of the German-raised horses were dead, either from battle or overuse, by the end of the war. The German army went through their horses in the first years of the war, especially in the East, and had to resort Soviet draft animals, which were smaller and less capable. In these films by the American military, one rarely sees horses on the road home. I see lots of civilian vehicles. But now that I mention, maybe I am wrong. I will have to go back and review some of the videos on this subject that I have watched in the past.
So cool , as a studied ww2 historian.I so love seeing these videos! I so wish I could have been there talking with the German officers right after the surrender..........
@Ray "Dude" - seriously doubt you are an accredited historian - more likely you've read some military fannish material - but I would hope you'd ask them point blank about the atrocities committed by the German Army regulars against the Czechs and not be fooled by lies.
The last shots of World War II in Europe fell in Bohemia near the town of Milín and the settlement of Slivice during May 11 and 12, 1945. the last shots of World War II in Europe were fired around three o'clock in the morning on May 12, 1945. A total of 6,000 German soldiers and SS men were captured, and about one thousand were killed in the fighting. About 2,300 soldiers fell on the Soviet side and the Americans had 1,120 casualties
Брат моего деда пройдя войну с Сталинграда получил тяжелое ранение при освобождении Праги вернулся домой и умер в 47 а сейчас в Чехии памятник Коневу ломают.
Not unbelievable, but "Unthinkable". This was a correct name of british warplan against USSR, where british and american troops with their German broters going to fight against Stalin.
Well... suffered? Then, please, do not forget that both current Czech Republic and Slovakia were on the Nazi side during WW2, they were not victims at all... But generous Soviet people could get along with it, and helped them to normalize their live after the war, saved many from hunger, what kind of an occupant behave like that?
That is absolutely true. But true is also that Czechs made a brutal ethnic cleansing with their german citizens which lived there since 700 years. Thousand of german women elderly and children were killed when they had to leave their homeland. More than 3 millions lost their home. Compared to that ethnic cleansing the Kosovo war of 1992 was a little dispute on a childrens playground. In WWII former victims often became brutal perpetrators im a short distance of time....
@@ursus911 Still, if the Czechs or any of the allied had behaved the same way as the Germans did --> e.g. shoting of civilians, cruelties on prisoners, concentration camps... How many Germans would be left over alive at the end of the war..??
@@bart4jah There is no, absolutely no doubt about the german cruelties in and before WWII. BUT, is that an excuse for everything the Allied did in the war? Is that an excuse to ignore, what allied soldiers did in Germany? If Nations, who call themselves civilized and have founded the UN Human Rights Declaration do, what they did, is that ok? Allied Air raids costed between 500.000 and 600.000 civilian victims. Allied troops , mainly Russians are responsible for more thean 850.000 rapes in and after 1945. Ethnic cleansing only in Eastern Germany costed more than 600.000 civilian victims. Do you remember the "Rheinwiesenlager" ? German Soldiers captured after mai 8th 1945 lost the status as POW. That meant starvation and deseases, what lead to approximately 500.000 victims. All numbers are official, could be many more. Official war losses were 14 million people. Yes , they began the war, they were guilty to some extend, but the treatment of Gemany was far worse, then history tells us today. And good treatment after 1949 was not the humanity of the US, that was the beginning cold war, Germans were needed.....
@@ursus911 It's like you storm in someone's house, burn it down, kill his wife and children, steal his possessions, then the house owner catches you and you tell him he has no right to harm you and that you want to contact your lawyer.... There was no concentration camps where allies would poison all the Germans as an infirior race. If your führer had won the war, you would never had suffered enough to understand that what you did was very very evil. It is wrong to blame a post war born German for it, but it is also wrong to allow any German to relativise the history.
Happy to meet the Americans! This is something the USA should remember in these dark times when many of its own citizens dance upon its flag. My father was liberated by US soldiers & he always remembered their humanity.
@@norisboy100 Immer noch versucht, sich an eine entlarvte märchenhafte Behauptung amerikanischer Gräueltaten im Rheinwiesenlager zu klammern, die der kanadische Schriftsteller James Bacque 1989 vorlegte.
the hell are you talking about. everything you see right now was built by Czechoslovakian communists. capitalists split the country in two (without asking people) and turned both countries into useless tourists distinations
Im afraid it has to happen :( . You see it yourself around yourself....its too calm so long and humanity starts to thinking about bullshits, lgbt, so much byrocracy, "I need more personal safe space" etc over-sensitive stuf... then wars begins again and it resets so people starts to think about the main thing...survive...food, water, roof, heat... (sry, this is just my opinion and thought it is ok to write it here :))
@@MrKaltharIMHO I don't think that sensitivity and empathy and respect given to others would be ever the reason to start the war. It is usually the opposites that do, because it drives negative emotions and becomes the block in cooperation to solve problems. When the cooperation stops, conflict starts. If we don't respect one another, one starts denying the needs of the other one - a classic reason for a war.
@@Martinko_Pcik Well, I didnt write THAT will start war.... I mentioned that this "calm age" makes people think about things that are totally unnecessary and over...how to call it...totally 180 degrees of normal thinking. Im pretty sure during war or right after it nobody was thinking about "making new 20 genders" and such staff...its now, because young people are bored and have nothing serious what to do. They have food, water, comfort, safety and time for making up stupid things.
Civilians are mostly Germans from part of Czechoslavika so I guess they feared that the Czechs wants to punish them for taking over their lands back in 1937 to 1939. Later after the war Germans who still there are expelled from Czechoslavika.
@ Weren't hundreds of thousands of 'German' Czechs driven out of Czechoslovakia at short notice after the German surrender, and many thousands were just murdered by the Czechs.
Sure were ------- because they knew what the Wehrmacht left behind in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania not to forget Poland Poland. A WASTELAND of wanton killing and destruction.
@@slimchancetoo Yes, it was, but the German prisoners had to pay a high price for it. Out of 95,000 prisoners in Stalingrad, 90,000 were murdered. Only alone in Stalingrad! As soon as the Americans, British and Russians were victorious, the rats came out of their holes and killed everything German. The first Chancellor Adenauer said: "Six million Germans disappeared after the surrender. Their murderers were in no way inferior to the Nazis". The bills are paid!
Dolphy ( adolph ) and Koba ( osipa vissarionovici ) was very good frendly before the war Before the war they divided Poland, Rumania, Cehoslovacia, Finland They helped each one with amy suply, etc...
@@Lennepirat26 Paid? And how much did the USSR lose? Do you know? And this is taking into account the fact that it was not the USSR that began to bomb Germany on June 22, 1941!!! And the Germans came!
I was told the the majority of German soldiers wanted to surrender to the American and British forces, because being a pow in the Soviet occupation zone meant certain death for these good looking handsome men.
I knew a German who was 7 years old went the Americans came into his village The adults were told to line up on one side of the road and the children on the other, everyone was frightened and did not know what to expect. The children were then all given fresh bananas, something that they had not seen before. The adults had their details taken down and then set free. My friend said that he practically lived in the American camp for the next three years.
I've read many accounts where German civilians rounded up by the American forces were scared half to death and expecting the worst. Only to be stunned at how well they were treated. They were given fresh food, clothing, facilities to bathe since many had no running water. Many civilians felt that they were treated better by the Americans than by their own military forces.
Мой отец казах по национальности, в эти дни был в Чехословакии и победу встретил папа в Праге. У меня есть фото. И вы его видите. Он там . Папа, такой молодой, с боями прошедший от Сталинграда до Праги танкистом, если бы он видел эти кадры.... Ушёл добровольцем на фронт. Шёл в бой со словами За Сталина, за Родину!!! Пенсионерка Алтын Ай Казахстан
А теперь мы слышим в ответ от казахов не приятные слова, у вас там видимо тоже промытые имеются.Всегда считал Казахстан самым близким по духу народом, надеюсь ещё не всё потеряно в наших связях.
товарищ Алтын. Мой отец в это время был в госпитале в Кенигсберге после тяжелых ранения и контузии. И в Сталинграде мой отец тоже воевал, как и Ваш. Лучше бы наши отцы НЕ видели эту хронику, где наших врагов гостеприимно принимают погостить на некоторое время наши на некоторое время союзники. Вся победа американцев над этими немецко-фашистами состояла в том, что они спасли преступников от советских лагерей, открыв свои ворота для драпания немцев от армии советских победителей. Обнимаю Вас, дорогая соотечественница по СССР. Николай
@@odyssey1355 почитай сначала историю подъёма Казахстана ,а потом пиши. Хочется вам хохлам рассорить России с Казахстаном. Не выйдет казахи народ мудрый не то что вы..
I wonder if my 16year old father is in this footage somewhere - very interesting to view this. He told me that he retreated from Czech. pretty much on foot and transport when he was able to surrender en-masse to the Americans...?!
In these videos of the Wehrmacht moving in to surrender, there appears little in the way off animosity being expressed towards the Krauts by the allies. It must be that after the years of terrible fighting and other hardships, both sides are just relieved that the whole thing is finally over.
My dad was in that war while I was a baby. He came home, but none of us survived emotionally. I cry watching these films, for everyone, and hope to see my dad among the faces. I'm 82 now, watching from Montana, USA.
I have relatives from Montana. Absolutely beautiful place. Kind Regards from Germany.
From waaaay Upstate NY (100Km S of Montreal) - My Dad was farther North 1945/46 and was Military Governor of small German town. I was 2+yrs old when he first saw me. RIP+Larry. 1985. - BTW Around 5:45, The US Captain with the CIB returns the salute, but doesn't seem to have much "Gemuetlichkeit" to share.😕
I see a lot of soldiers from all sides smiling in this video because they have just survived the worst global conflict in human history. A very logical reaction.
Not quite the reason, it wasn't so much relief at surviving military conflict. This withdrawal from Prague where they tortured and slaughtered 20,000 of the local civilian population meant they were firstly leaving behind their crimes and retribution from an immanent successful civilian uprising, and second were surrendering into the hands of US Army who would treat them far better than the advancing Soviet Army.
They also respect each other.
Another "worst global conflict in history " seems to be on the cards
By the same deepstate people who created the 20th century disasters. Not just in Europe. Laos, Cambolia, Vietnam, Korea, Irak, Afganistan, Serbia etc...And now they want to force the whole world against the Russians to save the USD and their economy. Son of a bitches
@@benedictearlson9044 then you interpret their laughs falsely. for sure there were some among them that may have smiled because of what you wrote. otherwise your claim has absolutely no ground. ordinary wehrmacht soldiers were by majority not involved in what you wrote ( this was done by SS units that operated at the back of the front line). where those wehrmacht soldiers innocent? probably not. were they responsible for the incredible atrocities that happened behind the front lines? for sure not.
you really have to get your history straight here, because you throw every person with a uniform into one pot and that does absolutely not reflect the reality. and of course there were common soldiers that were part of the atrocities that happened, but its wrong to blame an entire army for that. please read at least into basic information, its not that hard to find out about an overall picture of "who did exactly what". read the wiki article of the wehrmacht and the ss, this would be a good point to start, because responsibilities are handled quite well in these articles ( at least in the german articles). for example it were the so called SS-Totenkopfverbände ( "SS-Deathskullcompanies") that were responsible for the deportation of jews, communists, sinti asoasf - they were a special division within the SS, because they tried to hide as good as they could what they were doing. also the ghetto in warsow was run by the SS - another example. no ordinary wehrmacht soldier ever did duty there. every concentration camp was run by the SS, again no ordinary german soldiers did duty there - there was a secret to be kept and guarded...
as i said: get your history straight. i cannot believe this comment has 23 likes without anyone pointing out that you are very wrong in your interpretation, which shows that people are willing to believe whatever is written on the internet without any proof or evidence.
please note that im not trying to whitewash the wehrmacht or what was done at all. but history is not a fairytale - and thats what you are trying to make out of it.
The Germans were happy to have survived the war and not to have fallen into the hands of the Red Army !
whi not ?
Among Dolphy ( adolph ) and Koba ( osipa vissarionovici ) was a solid frenshiphood before the war
They did fall into the hands of the Russian army, The Russians occupied East
Germany for many years to come.
WW I - lost; WW II - lost. Germans, stop fighting the world. That's enough...
@@Stranger7_7
KOBA ( well knows as osipa vissarionovici djugaj villy ) every times WISHed the war and everytimes he wined
The ww2 wishs and wins
Berlin bolckade 1946, he wished and wins
The COLD WAR, 1947 he wished and wined ( sic !)
The KOREAN WAR, 1950 -1952 he wished the war and wined
GREEK CIVILIAN WAR, 1954-1956, koba wished the war and LOST
The hightes dangerous war in CUBA, 1959, Nikita Krushceva wished and wined the war
Don't 'forget the ROCKETS CRISIS octumbre de 1962, when all depended of one soviet man to press a buton
INDOCKINESE WAR,,1964--1973 ( Vi Et Nam ) soviet leaders wish and win the war
CAMBOGIAN WAR, most cruel the war in the, the soviet leaders wish and win the war
All african war as Angola, etc wars, soviet wished and winwd the war
AFGANISTAN 1979, brejneva leonid vissarion wished and wined the war
If I forget one, war help me please
@@Stranger7_7
And in both they made the enemy tremble
My oldest aunt's brother-in-law was killed in Czechoslovakia 3 days before the war ended. He was a tank commander in the 401st Tank Battalion. It seems that while on patrol, his tank slid off the road and overturned, presumably crushing him. He had survived from the beaches at Normandy only to die in an accident 3 days before the war ended. Life can be so unfair at times.
Life is risk no matter how you slice it...
That's the price we pay for admission.
Sux what happened..
Same happened to my Mother's boyfriend in Italy...truck accident and he died.... 😢 Life is unfair
Imagine the tens of thousands killed in waning four months of the war, long after it was lost.
@stophateing sow your button up
I was told a high school friend of mine was accidentally electrocuted while in Vietnam
My wife's uncle was the last American soldier killed in Europe at the very end (last day) of WWII. He was killed in Czechoslovakia by German ambush when they did not know the war ended. His name was PFC Charlie Havlat of Nebraska. His father emigrated from Czech before WWII. Yes he was Czech American.
Thats a bummer. My grandfather survived the WWII fighting in chetnik ranks and then in a penitentiary squad on first lines in Bosnia where they were charging the retreating Germans and expelling them from the country somewhere along the line his position was hit with a shell, SS troops along with Handzar collaborationists slaughtered everyone who was remaining while he was thrown by the blast away and rolled down the hill getting to be rescued and hospitalised in a part of Croatia until the end of the war. He died in 2019 age 95.
@GOVnoRasha why the ukrainian flag for
thats unbelievable.. so very sad. but if you dont mind, i would like to thank your family for your sacrifice.. because without American support me , my children, and my grandchildren would'nt even exist.. because Germany would of eventually invaded Britain, so my 12 year old mother probably would never have survived.. so , i realise it doesnt help much, but your family's sacrifice literally saved about 12 lives in my family.. and for that i am eternally grateful
Ok
@stephenbartley8133. What do you mean? Just look how germany treated the french during occupation. Im sure your family would have been fine. Unless you mean britain not surrendering and germany making it to the shore of the island. Though britain would have probably surrendered if the nazis actually made it over the canal
My Uncle was in a POW camp in Eastern poland. When the Russians came close the Germans fled. Most of the POWs decided to wait, but my Uncle who was from the wilds of Scotland and a Scots Guard decided to go West to see what he could find hoping to meet up with advancing British troops. Well after a couple of months and many miles , in April 1945 he came across an American unit. They shouted at him, and his broad Scots accents was mistaken for German so they shot at him ! Luckily it was just a flesh wound ! He suffered from lung illness because when he was captured in Italy in 1943 the Germans beat him so badly he had breathing problems, and when he eventually went to hosptial in 1945 he had a lung removed. He smoked role your own ciggies in spite of his lung problems. He died in 1976.
when was he born
One Strong Man.
Why would the Germans put an Allied soldier in a POW camp in Eastern Poland ?
There were concentration camps & so-called death camps in E. Poland, but no POW camps for Western Allied Troops....though there may have been camps there for Russian POWs.
@@Baskerville22
Same question. Unfamiliar with that tactic.
At Aarnham my great Uncle pretended too be dead when operation market garden failed and he ended up on a road all this squad killed......Germans passed him and then he slide into the river and escaped. he died I think 1960s
very good quality footage. I´m Slovakian and I´ve seen a lot of videos from this era but this was new to me. Thank you very much for posting this.
My father is a Slovak too and moved to USA after the war..
@@vincentkosik403 he did the right thing because after German tanks left then in 1968 Russian tanks came in at night and stayed for decades
@@68scorpion68 He may have been a little bit nuts, but he wasn't stupid as they say
@@vincentkosik403 you had to be, because that person was leaving behind everything and everybody he knew and was entering uncharted waters
@@68scorpion68 So it was not an occupation, the Czechs were still led by the Czechs, unlike the German ones, where the protectorate was led by a protector. and it was German. At that time, the enemies of the empire were arrested and murdered. The Germans killed or executed during the occupation , ie from 1938 to 1945, ! 343 thousand ! Czech civilians. After 1968, 72 people lost their lives here. These people were not executed, they were killed in the first days of the occupation, or at a time when there were Soviet troops, ie in 20 years. Your statement is in line with current efforts to change history.
My dad was a medic and part of the 508th medical collection company now called Mash. I remember he told me when the got to the Rhine River below Remagen Germany and crossed, if the wind was right you could smell the Germans. He said when they crossed the Rhine on a Bailey Bridge after The Remagen Bridge finally failed and fell into the river, his unit picked up more wounded German Soldiers than American Soldiers. They were in pitiful shape and the fight was out of them. I also remember him telling me that most of these Whermacht Soldiers were tradesmen before the war. Finish Carpenters, Masons, electricians, shoemakers, tin smiths. They were friendly and offered service to the U.S. Army in any way they could before being rounded up and shipped to the rear to be held in a POW camp. He said several were very very good cooks and what they served beat the hell out of the Army Chow.
It's meaningful to hear what those who were there have to say. It must be an enormous relief when war ends and soldiers can go back to being just people, people who would never have killed if not for the war. My brother was a medic who served 2 tours in Vietnam, so your father has a little special meaning to me. Bless you.
Greetings from Germany. My granddad told me, that they didn't concern the Americans to be enemies. Lots of Germans had relatives in the States who emigrated there. The one ideological enemy where the soviets.
That's utter rubbish. Your grandfather was telling you lies. Read some history books about the war - and the war at sea in the Atlantic and the Western front.
@@brianhammer5107 In a history book you find anything about operations and the generals who masterminded them. You find nothing about the ordinary soldiers and their lives. The war at the sea is not covered in that video and my granddad didn't serve in the navy. But propably you should consider talking to people first hand before you insult others.
@@lukewagner5492 Completely false - you are not a professional historian and you don't know what the literature says.
@@brianhammer5107 So wasn't my granddad. He was simply there when things took place. But I'm sure you know more people who served in the Heer than I do.
@@lukewagner5492 Look, sorry your grandfather may have had guilty feelings later and didn't tell you the whole truth - but the German soldiers were fighting for a horrid, brutal, Nazi regime and there is no denying that. A lot of them committed atrocities. There is no getting around that. Germany was a great nation that went mad for a while. Today, the kids are brought up in a free and rational state. The 30's were NOT such a time.
Amazing quality of footage!! Please keep uploading! 🙏
Agva ?!
Amazing how the Germans and Americans respected each other in this video.
Probably about half of the US soldiers were of German descent. It is also true that fighting men generally respect one another. It is when the support and administrative and military police units show up that things get bad.
Лживые кадры,это не чехословакия.
It's more amazing how black soldiers shed blood for their countries still were treated like 2nd class citizens. Even the enemy soldiers were treated better.
@@mirquellasantos2716that’s the power of race
@@lskrologhow do you know? Did you recognize the village?
All my uncles and dad fought in WWII. My dad said the war was such a relief to them because they were all starving to death (uneducated share croppers) during the Great Depression and this gave them dependable stable employment. Two of my uncles made a career in the military 20+ years.
Τι ήταν Γερμανοί?
Curious if they were white or black?
They were poor white sharecroppers served the Peek family near Lamar Country TX.
@@homenj3897 maybe I’m just ignorant but you don’t hear much about white sharecroppers
@@austint7533 , Ironically, after starting my own career, I had by accident and unknowingly returned to Clarksville, TX (Red River County), where my grandparents had lived, to work. Then even by the remotest coincidence, I met via business, a man named Powel Peek, a farmer, very elderly, with a large real estate holding. As he and I were in discussion related business, he asked me about my family, background, being triggered by my last name. I shared what little I knew. He then informed me, he thought my family had worked for his father in the 1870’s until 1930’s. He was little older than my father (1918), I reached out to my dad and he confirmed, this was the family they had worked for.
My understanding is my grandparents had immigrated from TN to TX after the Civil War, very poor, uneducated with limited skills trying to survive. Peeks were a wealthy white family and were a means to survival until WWII. My own father quit school after 7th grade (1925), farming until 1941. Have read and seen documentaries of this area of the South during this period and seen few blacks in the area. Today, blacks make up a probably 35% percent, of country population. Where I was born and raised in remote West TX, a black man was a rare sight also. We had two black families in the whole county (Upton). Extremely remote rural areas and blacks were too smart to live there. We watched MLK, in his prime on TV nightly. What we observed was the exact opposite of what we lived. The Blacks we knew were hard workers, honest, respected and good athletes (football), family people. They had lives equal to the area whites. So racism was unknown and to see MLK and those events, were strange to us as children, We lived hard lives, survival a focus. The Mexican population was much larger (15%+) than the blacks and increasing daily (wet backs, few, if any, spoke English, attended school, except for the few). Different times and thinking.
I escaped to university along with my sister. She returned, married and left never to return. I never returned after leaving for college in the early 70’s, doing my best not to visit Vietnam, where I now work, lol. Sorry to bore.
My Boy Scout leader was a German soldier who was picked up by an American patrol. He later served in the US Army. Wolfgang Kinzel, RIP.
I have a soft spot in my heart for the average German soldier who never knew of or committed atrocities.
@@eflint1 German soldiers brutally killed 27 million Russian men, women, children, and the elderly. And millions of people in other countries.
@@ЭЮЯ-о3к wasn't that Stalin to his own people.
@@petergoodwin2465 No. Stalin's victims are another topic. But the Germans brutally killed 27 million Russian people.
@@petergoodwin2465 The Germans burned people in crematoria.
Seems so real in color. Growing up, WW2 was a distant black and white event. I've spent a lot of time in Europe. This could have been filmed yesterday.
Yes, its shocking realistic. Unbelievable the war is 76 years over. By the way "The Wizard of Oz" was filmed in colour 1938...
@@sandhase8129 Yes, I'm a film buff and there has been color film for a while, but WW2 in my mind is a black and white event. Not until recently has all the color renditions have been showing up. Not the fighting so much.
esp in color the American stars & stripes truly is a flag of beauty
@@garyschultz7768 Yes it is!
Yeah also the fact as you get older the war seems not so far away.basically twice my life time ago before I was born.
One of the most important vids ever. Shows how we all care about peace over all...
THEY ALL MUST HAVE BEEN EXECUTED IN PUBLIC BY HANGING, THAT WAY YOU WON'T HAVE NEONAZI WARS IN VIETNAM, IRAQ, SYRIA, ETC
@@crapisnice These German soldiers here are not even Nazis, they're regular Wehrmacht units. If we follow your logic they would have executed the entire German population.
@@distantthunder12ck55 Why only the German population, shot the whole world! sarcasm - Ayoze you have a very one-sided sick view of things. A little petty. What have the Germans to do with Vietnam and Korea, but in fact the biggest warmongers have been hanging around there. And don't forget the Treaty of Versailles in your reflections.
@@susannesperre9573 What the hell are you talking about? I was defending Germans and Germany in reply to the moron saying they should all have been executed.
00:14 The German tanker displays an interesting service history on his uniform jacket. On the left upper arm can be seen the rank insignia of a Stabsgefreiter which would mean that he was barred from becoming an NCO. Regarding his decorations on the left side of his jacket this appears even more intriguing: He has the ribbon of the Eisernes Kreuz second class and the small red Ordensspange to the right of this could be the medal for the winter fighting in the East 1941/42. A very lucky survivor then? Probably, since he also sports a Nahkampfspange in either bronce for 15 hand to hand fights or in gold for 50! Plus a wound medal in silver meaning he was wounded three or four times.
Thank you for such fascinating insight. I noticed him too but have nothing like your knowledge of insignia. Most interesting to see the camaraderie and lack of malice.
@Kevin McCormack It says nothing about this particular individual, just as membership in the many, many American and other Allied units that committed war crimes (certainly on a much smaller scale) says nothing about individuals in those units.
@Kevin McCormack It's the standard uniform worn by all panzer crewmen. The skull was a different version than the SS skull. Totenkopf was an SS division
the gi next to him has a "liberated" zeiss ikon contax in brown leather case around his neck
@WingsandBeer, it is standard Heer tank crew insignia. Nothing to do with the SS-Totenkopf.
I drive this road every day. I did not know that there are such recordings of it...
5:27 GI on the right wearing SSI for the US 87th Infantry Division, the "Golden Acorn". Thanks for uploading this great color footage from the end of the war in Europe.
5:42, a US Captain wearing a Combat Infantry Badge.
What a relief it must have been for all these soldiers knowing they had survived and were going to see their families and wives again. A truly historic moment
The same could be true for Ukraine today. Simply accept to be neutral and your hell is over. But no, they are crazy about joining NATO. Ok, so be it.
Sadly the Russians turned up 2 days later, and all these men where turned over to them. They all were either shot or went off to Russian work camps untill 1954.
(that's why the Americans let them keep their uniforms, and metals on)
Notice all the Jews in American uniforms, are watching, and listening.
American Intelligence was what they were called.
Always 50 miles back from the front, untill the smoke cleared!
Then they said they were Heros! lol!
the soldiers in this video are so skinny and so the civillians are, compared today
@@MTC008
32 million people around the World, starved to death after the war was over.
@@bennyboogenheimer4553 no what i mean is that people eat a lot less compared how people eat today because there are lots of fat people nowadays
The images in this film are very interesting. And I fully understand the joy that many German soldiers seem to show at succeeding in surrendering to the American troops. the history of those units and those soldiers deserves to be known.
Well, that means they thought they can escape retribution for what they did in the Soviet Union.
Yeah the history of these units deserves to be known for sure, but the same way should be known the history of their poor Soviet, Czech, Polish, Slovakian, French, Serbian etc victims. Imho even more important and interesting is the role of Sudetengermans, who lived in Czechoslovakia back then. My great grand-auntie was German living in Olomouc (german Olmütz). She spoke fluently German and Czech. A very interesting woman tbh.
@@davidknichal6629 You are right. His role in the war must be remembered. There is a certain mythomania with German units. There is a strange fascination for these units that leads to forgetting the criminal nature of the state they served and of which they were instruments. The equidistance between the Reich and the USSR habitually hides anti-communism; the world would not have been the same with a triumph of the Reich, fortunately the allies won, something impossible if the USSR had not been among them.
@@unhappyallthetime8445 ты лгун приведи документы, которые говорят о готовности СССР к вторжению в Германию. Наверно это СССР подошёл к границам Германии.
@@unhappyallthetime8445 беда у тебя с головой
To se již nesmí nikdy opakovat!!
Amen my brother!
Unfortunately, things are looking like humanity didn't learn the last 2 times.
Что именно - окупация Чехословакии или Мировая война!?(
I fear that we learned only for a generation or two. Look at the parallels between today’s leaders and those in the 1930s. No answers, just observation.
That restaurant at 4:31 is still there. Gasthof zur Tanne in Tannenbergsthal (Saxony).
Which does not make much sense, the column would move towards Czechoslovakia?
"Czechoslovakia, May 1945" ?
@@neinnein9306 If you look on the map, Gasthof zur Tanne in Tannenbergsthal (Saxony) is in GERMANY, not in Czechoslovakia. Not that far from the border but NOT within Czechoslovakia.
@@smitthone yes, i just quoted the title of the video.
I want to eat there! Is it good? hehe
Fascinating video. Thanks for uploading.
1946 Second grade a new student from Czechoslovakia appeared one day. No one in the class ever realized how thankful he was to be in the US. He finished the 8th grade top of the class and continued at the top of HS and College. He probably loved America more than most in the class. All Americans should love and respect AMERICA.
I've always loved America... But lately I've forgotten why.
@@jimbo7577 Don't give up the faith, the losers and haters will soon come to an end.
@Kafa kafica There's a severe crack not broken yet we still have the time to fix the crack, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
@@j.kevinmoran9678 Deep respect for your generation... (me: in childhood migrated to NY... from PRC, some years served with DOS in low capacities. during last decade took retirement early, travelled the world, learned German and Russian languages... then understood... it might be a bit late to seriously hold on to that kind of optimism as you just shown. Gives me no pleasure...)
@@j.kevinmoran9678 Thank you for saving us! 🇨🇿♥️🇺🇸
It’s easier for a whole army to surrender …individually it’s another story
Americans killed a lot of surrenders like the Germans did.
@@teleguy5699 Yes…it’s not a liberator-pacificator behavior…as the US always claim to be
@@mrhaltstop2294 We could be just as brutal. War makes humans that way, but what we did with post war Germany and Japan you have to admire. We weren't conquerors, and we helped rebuild both nations.
@@teleguy5699 I know that war makes inhuman…the one with the finger on the trigger has always the last word when impunity rules
@@mrhaltstop2294 Well said. Be well brother.
In a time when history is being canceled at a rapid pace videos like these are important
History isn’t being cancelled. It’s just being forgotten. But your right, these are important scenes to remember.
@@RobPetty622 I think today's "sheeple" are trying real hard to erase it!!
@@hauntedmoodylady smartest and totally correct comment I've heard latley. Well said.
Once the librarys are defunded the changing of history is a mouse click away
@@hauntedmoodylady I think you might benefit from a psychiatric evaluation
What a trip it is seeing all that military in a small European town. I would love to go back in time to witness the grandeur of it all. Needless to say, I wouldn't want to see the horrors, but the amount of firepower and troops will probably never be duplicated seeing how we can unleash so much more destruction with a tenth of the personnel or equipment. I've been part of big deployments, (Desert Storm and others) but WW2 is in a league of it's own.
Our men didnt give a shit about "grandeur". They wanted to get back home to their families!
@@robertstotesbury8005 Who said they did? I said I'd like to see it as a historian. Trust me though, I'm sure they were in awe of the military magnitude coming from those small US towns though in the 1940's when they knew about nothing but their neighbors. I was part of the buildup to Desert Storm and I was impressed. And I wanted to just get home too.
@@teleguy5699 I totally agree that kind of military buildup will never happen again. To go back in time and see it all knowing what we know now would be some experience for sure!
I live in that town where the armies met. My uncle saw americans tussians and germans at same time
@@zerofox7347 No doubt!
Great video footage! Nice choice of music to accompany it.
The reaction of a part of the public to these images is really surprising. There are many aspects to be able to comment on these images, but there are people who prefer to attack the Soviets or remember the "communist dictatorship" in Czechoslovakia. There are all kinds of opinions. That is always a positive thing, it is something that allows you to have a debate and perhaps learn from the discussion. Czechoslovakia was a democratic country in 1938. England was primarily responsible for handing over Czechoslovakia to the Third Reich: they sacrificed the Czechoslovaks. Has it been forgotten? Does anyone comment on that? And a small detail that is continually forgotten: in 1939, Poland participated in the invasion of Czechoslovakia and annexed part of the territory. Poland in 1939 was not a democratic country. It was a country that had signed its own Non-Aggression Treaty with the Third Reich. Any comment on this?
Please elaborate, we are barely taught anything about the Czech role and adjacent countries before, during and after the war.
it's exactly as you wrote it! (Poland The German Pact "Piłsudski-Hitler" was signed on January 26, 1934). I am Czechoslovak and I know how Britain and France betrayed us and threw us ahead of Hitler. Poland really attacked Czechoslovakia together with Hitler. Even in 1939, after Czechoslovakia was divided into Slovakia and Bohemia, Hungary attacked Slovakia and took over the whole of southern Slovakia! (The Hungarian-Slovak War lasted from April 23 to 4, 1939.)
Correct. Poland annexed the area around Teschen (german name).
When you are lying knocked out on the floor, they come for you …..
Rightly or wrongly, “England” was trying to stop a new world war. Now it didn’t work out like that as we all know... Poland’s non aggression pact with the Nazis didn’t work out too well either.
@@marspp Every German pilot shot down in the skies of Spain was one less enemy in the Battle of Britain. The UK government decided that the way to prevent war was by sacrificing Czechoslovakia and Spain. The battle in Spain was lost, but the war was finally won. The misfortune is that Western Europe was liberated by the allies, but Spain, which had been the first to fight, was not liberated.
Thanks for the video. The color footage makes it seem so much more real than black and white does. Almost unimaginable times.
My father was going back to Hungary from Dresden or Gera(?) on freight train when they got strafed and bombed by P-47-s near that place.He was student, got injured. In a "gasthaus or some townhall(?) was the "Refugee Classification Committee". Czech Army sent a colonel, Russians a captain, USAA just a sergeant. The sergeant did all the work, knew everything, the bigwigs were just practicing upmanship and basically laymans politics, not real work or even hands-on management. Strange that in 1988 I rented a room in Annandale, Va. from a jovial scumbag disbarred lawyer who - as it turned out - flew one of the P-47-s there (at age not yet 20!)...Small world!
Interesting if true.
Such a historic moment. I'm sure everyone was tingling.
Thank God the horrors of war are over. Bless all the brave man who fought…lived and died in this awful awful war
Non, les horreurs ne sont pas terminées avec les révisionisites allemands et anglo saxons , 80 ans après les crimes ça continue, à vomir 🤮 !
😊
Thanks for sharing this video. Never seen by me. Intersting reading the comments about the video....thanks everybody !
You can see the relief on soldiers of both sides that they will now actually survive the war and will not be shot at any longer.
Initially that was not the case for the Americans. Remember that the war was still going on in the Pacific. There was a real possibility that the Japanese home islands would have needed to be invaded. If that were the case many of the Americans in Europe were going to be shipped back to the US for retraining and then they would have been sent to the Pacific to fight the Japanese. Fortunately the Pacific war ended without an invasion.
@@joevignolor4u949 I forgot what division it was. But a US infantry division arrived so late in Germany. That it was sent back to the US and was being re-trained to fight in the Pacific.
Many of the German soldiers who surrendered to the Americans were initially very happy that that didn't end up in Russian captivity, however, their original euphoria didn't last for long. Large numbers of German POWs were thrown into open air holding pens by the Americans and British, where they starved and died from lack of shelter and medical care. The Americans and British also turned over large numbers of German POWs to the French. The French used them for slave labor. They probably were still luckier than those taken prisoner by the Soviets but it was certainly no picnic to be taken prisoner by the Americans.
@@MrSloika Remember also the fact that the Dutch and French used orphans from the ruins of German cities to clear the minefields in those countries.
As a result, thousands of German orphans were killed clearing mines.
I'm curious: could american soldiers feel relief with german bro like on this pictures, if wermacht razed a third of USA like in USSR?
Churchill warned Roosevelt of an iron curtain in east europe. Roosevelt did not listen. Russians had fought germans bravely 1943 to 45.. but they murdered millions. East europe suffered
You do realize the war was not over. Roosevelt knew we needed the Russians if we were going to invade Japan. Manhattan Project was not a certainty. It was a raw deal for sure.
Not everything is US fault
You do realize at that point another war, potentially world war, against the soviet union was just unacceptable. The american people would have revolted at the idea that now as the nazi regime has been defeated more americans need to die in a new war.
Good things for USA because Russia people's sacrifice their own lives for security of USA in Europe and USA civilization
25 million Russians died in world war ll Millions in Belarus Ukraine Poland Czech Yugoslavia Greece. Murdered. Horrific deaths most were women and children. Bodies being made into soap. Horrific.
My dad grew up in the village of Tannenbergsthal and told me often that he can remember when he was a kid, that he saw the American soldiers in the meadows and the jeeps and everything. This looks exactly like his description and was filmed very likely on the same occasion. Cant wait to show him this clip. I can identify many of the locations where the scenes were shot. Because this is a remote village not a lot has changed. Thanks for sharing this interesting insight.
The German Unit is not retreating, they are just coming home, in an ordely manner. The Americans are somehow surprised to see the troop in general, clean and disciplined. Things are already becoming hot with the Soviets, who will impose a long dictatorship on Central and Eastern Europe. We are lucky to live in the World we live in today.
All the vehicles seem in good order, far better than those before Berlin, the men without bandages.....
Opposite of surprise, ppl are amused to see the most stereotypical representation of germans in Action even in abject defeat
So you think, it's all just a matter of luck?
Interesting I’ve been watching these films for the last couple of days - I am amazed at state of these German troops and their transports. They still seem to have a lot of trucks, far less horse drawn carriages than expected, also most troops seem to be clean, well fed, not looking defeated, just a little uneasy or some even defiant, with the occasional fraternizing. Not what I expected to see, but have read about in some accounts.
I am not a big history buff, but i believe those are the troops that fought in Czechoslovakia. Quick check of German side reveals that among those men were "elite" troops from
• Hermann Goering Panzer Corps
• Grossdeutschland Panzer Corps
Of course list is bigger.
I remember hearing somewhere that Grossdeutschland and Herman Goering Panzer Corps were prioritised for supply and were considered "elite". Perhaps that's why they don't look as tore down as other less prioritised divisions who surrendered. Perhaps someone more informed can enlighten this for both of us.
Because these Nazis are certain the USA will forgive them for their war crimes.
Liked your comments, feel the same. Can't help buy think what the Germans faced who surrendered to the Russians looked like.
@@als1023 bad eggs for breakfast.....
These guys are strolling around like everybody’s friends the Germans have all their stuff with them except the weapons and they look pretty fresh, the reality of it all is they really were a professional army, you get the impression that the us gi’s were undisciplined, dangerous lot.
People forget that when the war ended, the German formations in the West didn't just dissolve. Well, maybe some SS units (which had retaliation to fear), but otherwise they were still an army. There were formalities to be observed. There was paperwork. There was lots of liaison with senior Allied officers and their field-grade gophers. There was usually a route march to a concentration point (with or without wire -- usually it was unnecessary), and then an orderly muster-out to be seen to -- and the Germans were nothing if not orderly. The other ranks saluted their superiors, and the seniors returned those honors. Discipline was observed, and meted out to looters, equipment thieves, the disorderly, and even some deserters. Most men's steady source of food remained their unit's field kitchens, their shelter the unit's kaserne or field bivouac, until they got leave (and transport) to return home.
Well duh. A gigantic Armed force doesn't just disappear. Especially a well trained force like the Wehrmacht.
In fact they were so solid and organized that they formed the core of the modern German Army (Bundeswehr).
The Germans still looked the part . The field gray and stand up collars, crisp epilettes looked smart . After seeing their earth brown uniforms on color footage the Yanks standing next to the men in filed grey must have thought and come to the conclusion ' Hey we look like the red army in that brown shit ' and changed it to green after the fall out with their red allies und their uncle Joe. The infamous fall out aka Berlin blockade came in 1947 resulting in the cold war lasting 44 years . Some victory eh. A hollow victory. Should have just let the Germans do the biz in the east and not get involved . Now , again we have problem with the barbarian hordes of the east. Nothing has changed. The Russians are still the menace they always were.
Yeah, German soldiers were ready to kiss the feet of Americans. I always say that German soldiers were true cowards.
My uncle died in polland, he was a he was a private who served in a mounted platoon. It’s shocking how different the preparations for the war were in Poland had troops were on a horses meanwhile the Germans forces possessed superior tanks and weapons.. rest and peace uncle..
Actually Wehrmacht had largely a also relied on horses for moving their troops way into the war as did in Poland in 1939.
You mean ''rest IN peace''..
Breathtaking to see this in color. I could watch these videos all day.
Me too!!
Вам просто делать некуй
In fact, on the Western Front the war was not at all the same as on the Eastern Front. On the one hand, an easy walk on a sunny day, and on the other, a typhoon of death.
It's hard to think that most, even all of the grown people in this footage lives no more. Life is short.
ويبقي وجه ربك
American soldier is a generous and kind-hearted soldier. Look at these faces! And the civilians, too, seem to be at ease. We did the job and now we aren't enemies anymore. US Army All the Way!
Watching these surrender films makes me proud to be an American. The interractions between the Germans and the Americans seems very casual in these films, and shows our generous nature. They are lucky they were able to surrender to Americans....rather than to the Soviets. And think of how it would have been had we been forced to surrender to them, or the Japanese. Would have been as different as night and day.
As an American and am not proud of this film. As a matter of fact it angers me. Why? While American soldiers were so nice with the enemy who were torturing and killing them they were brutal with black American soldiers who shed blood to defend America.
@@mirquellasantos2716 look everyone, it's a little commie posting in here. Hello little commie. Why don't you rescind your citizenship and move to Venezuela with your comrades? Get a move on!
@@mirquellasantos2716 Oh shut up with your race bullshit. You simply know nothing of what you speak.
Спасибо что оцифровываете историю!
Конкретно это плёнка оригинальная
@@zamanium7517 ну это само собой. Имеется ввиду что эти оригинальные пленки переводятся в цифру, благодаря чему мы можем их здесь увидеть
@@christmarxxx понял . Спасибо
Да, такую историю, где американцы обнимаются с немцами как с братьями стоит документировать! Прямо встреча на Эльбе!
@@МирославМорозов-д1ы ну а ты чего ждал? Демагогию никто не отменял
Just think about the people we are seeing in this film are mostly dead by now-the walking dead.
I was wondering if that German Officer, thought he was gonna’ keep his field glasses?
The baby that is seen in a moment, he should be alive.
@@gnza2012 Missed out on Eisenhowers order off march 1944.- ''Kill all krauats on the Ground.''
beautiful pictures of a historical event. Gladly more of it. Not to get into Soviet captivity was the ultimate goal of many troops and south-east Germany.
German soldiers have to decide which feet to kiss- Americans or Soviets. What a bunch of cowards.
Unter anderem ist zu sehen der 'Gasthof zur Tanne' in Tannenbergsthal. Hier handelt es sich um einen Ort im Vogtland-Thüringen, nicht in Böhmen. Diesen Gasthof gibt es noch heute.
Tannenbergsthal liegt im Sächsichen Vogtland nicht in Thüringen.
@@mathiaskrause7838 Also sowieso,nicht in Boehmen ?
Tannenergsthal liegt im sächsischen Vogtland. Das ist richtig. Das überrascht mich das Filmaufnahmen aus dieser Zeit auftauchen.
Those continuity things are amazing.
isnt fascinating that germans on video can discuss here?
Ironically, this music sounds like it's straight out of Command and Conquer, no need for words here.
Haha…the music is epic…
My fathers unit, the 897th Ordnance HAM Company, 1st Army, was in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia on VE day. They received orders to fall back into Germany shortly thereafter as Czechoslovakia was designated as Russian occupied territory.
Thanks for the info. That makes sense.
True, first western "allies" sold us(Czechoslovakia) to Hitler in 1938, than to Stalin in 1945. That said, many ordinary people supported communist government at first, most of them realized it was mistake after 1948, but it was too late already...
and the western europe as american occupied territory
@@janfrosty3392 Better that Russian occupied territory. All the Warsaw Pact joined NATO asap.
There are now monuments and memorials to the American liberation. And often the Russian ones in the E of the Cz lands have been removed.
An Excellent view of German uniforms, vehicles and equipment.
All their uniforms were perfectly designed.
Americans look like beggars and hobos next to the Germans in their handsome, well-fitting uniforms. You would think they are the ones that lost if you went by the neatness of their uniforms. The German uniforms command respect.
Velká vďaka za dokument v ČSSR sme ho nemohli vidět 45 roku tihle Fricove dopadli luxusné ostatní ruskí gulag
Ты сам хоть понял что написал..?(
For all the uneducated ones in here saying Hugo Boss designed the German uniforms you are completely and totally wrong, Hugo Boss was only awarded the contract to manufacture not design their uniforms, the designers of all German military uniforms including the SS were SS-Oberführer Prof. Karl Diebitsch, and graphic designer Walter Heck, who had no affiliation with the Boss company.
They still made them lmao
@@lachlanmclennan2188 so did 2 other companies in Germany there's a big difference in claiming that someone designed them and simply manufactured them.
Many pictures are made in Saxonia, Germany. For the Gemans in the Sudetes a very hard time began: expulsions and sometimes death by shooting or forced marches (Brno, Brünner Todesmarsch to the Soviet Occupation Zone of Austria).
Poor, poor Germans. How could they do this to them.
In similar situation few years back Germans usually gave Poles about 20 min to leave the house or else.
@@robertcudny1839 Czechs were frustrated from persecutions, executions, mass murders (exc. Ležáky village), germanization and potential annihilation. They linched Germans every day and mass executed them (exc. "Kino Bořislavka massacre", where they shoot them and used truck to crush german bodies).
@@23Disciple I'm not supprised.
My great-grandparents had to leave their homeland in the Sudetes in 1946 after having lived there since the 18th century. All the time they lived next door to their Czech neighbors, my grandmother's brother is missing in Russia, he was only 20 years old. She never got over it. It's always the little people who have to make the biggest sacrifices.
@@Katrin-jj3mg It is sad what happened,Germans lived in Sudetenland for a long time and I think that through centuries,we had pretty good relations,but no matter that they lived there for so long,it was always part of our country,Germans had pretty good life in Czechoslovakia,yet they betrayed us and caused fall of our country.
This vid was VERY INTERESTING; the music is well paced; this , altogether was EXCELLENT; THANKS!! 👍🏼👣🩴
Etliche Szenen sind in Sachsen aufgenommen. Tannenbergsthal bei Klingenthal.
Danke schőn.
The Wehrmacht in defeat maintained their composure and dignity.
how awesome of them...sigh...
Both the Wehrmacht and the SS committed atrocities. They molested children, raped women, tortured civilians and killed them.
beautyful restored images , important to be liked
Das ist echt eine sehr wertvolle Aufnahme und dann noch in Farbe.
Genau!! Einfach wunderbar!
Okay!!!!
The end of the Nazi's..das is gut!
@@kenpudsey6435 Natrulich war das ende des NS wichtig und gut...ja, stimmt
@@jjns5600 Well said JJ 👍
ОЧЕНЬ ЖАЛЬ ЧТО ФИЛЬМЫ КОРОТКИЕ ПО ВРЕМЕНИ И ВЫХОДЯТ КРАЙНЕ РЕДКО.СПАСИБО ОЧЕНЬ ИНТЕРЕСНО.
Magnífico filme, documento histórico.
The Germans were notoriously short on fuel at the war's end. Were they given fuel by the Americans to make it home? Just curious to see so many German vehicles still operating.
Behind the Panzers, the German Army was a horse-and-cart affair throughout the war.
@@None-zc5vg One would have thought that most of the German-raised horses were dead, either from battle or overuse, by the end of the war. The German army went through their horses in the first years of the war, especially in the East, and had to resort Soviet draft animals, which were smaller and less capable. In these films by the American military, one rarely sees horses on the road home. I see lots of civilian vehicles. But now that I mention, maybe I am wrong. I will have to go back and review some of the videos on this subject that I have watched in the past.
Hello Anon Anon: Reviewed this video, and see a few horses between the trucks, so I am wrong. Some of these poor critters did survive the war!
@jmpmc100 Thank you for answering my question.
I realize I should have written "notoriously." in the first sentence of my question.
So cool , as a studied ww2 historian.I so love seeing these videos!
I so wish I could have been there talking with the German officers right after the surrender..........
What would you say?
+@Ray Dude...............You have any idea what those officers would have told you?
@Ray "Dude" - seriously doubt you are an accredited historian - more likely you've read some military fannish material - but I would hope you'd ask them point blank about the atrocities committed by the German Army regulars against the Czechs and not be fooled by lies.
I wish I was there as well, to shoot them for murdering members of our extended family at concentration camps.
@@_________1623 and so what if they did? Don't believe the Wehrmacht is clean. They were just as bad as the SS.
The last shots of World War II in Europe fell in Bohemia near the town of Milín and the settlement of Slivice during May 11 and 12, 1945.
the last shots of World War II in Europe were fired around three o'clock in the morning on May 12, 1945. A total of 6,000 German soldiers and SS men were captured, and about one thousand were killed in the fighting. About 2,300 soldiers fell on the Soviet side and the Americans had 1,120 casualties
Брат моего деда пройдя войну с Сталинграда получил тяжелое ранение при освобождении Праги вернулся домой и умер в 47 а сейчас в Чехии памятник Коневу ломают.
Sad. God's TRUE angels....
Love the music bud!!! It's like Vangelis meets the apocalypse.
This is unbelievable,...the music adds drama,...this is just amazing.
Not unbelievable, but "Unthinkable". This was a correct name of british warplan against USSR, where british and american troops with their German broters going to fight against Stalin.
It's like a looking glass into the past... Almost seems like you could jump through the screen and into the past.
My Grandfather was one of these guys. The lucky ones. If Hitler had his way, every serviceman would be dead defending the Reich.
Apparently, my grandpa fought briefly against the Austrians in Lapland. Pretty pointless war. He was sent home in November 1944.
Let us not forget that after these photos, Czechoslovakia suffered 44 years of Soviet domination until the end of 1989’s Velvet bloodless revolution!
Well... suffered? Then, please, do not forget that both current Czech Republic and Slovakia were on the Nazi side during WW2, they were not victims at all...
But generous Soviet people could get along with it, and helped them to normalize their live after the war, saved many from hunger, what kind of an occupant behave like that?
That is absolutely true. But true is also that Czechs made a brutal ethnic cleansing with their german citizens which lived there since 700 years. Thousand of german women elderly and children were killed when they had to leave their homeland. More than 3 millions lost their home. Compared to that ethnic cleansing the Kosovo war of 1992 was a little dispute on a childrens playground. In WWII former victims often became brutal perpetrators im a short distance of time....
@@ursus911 Still, if the Czechs or any of the allied had behaved the same way as the Germans did --> e.g. shoting of civilians, cruelties on prisoners, concentration camps... How many Germans would be left over alive at the end of the war..??
@@bart4jah There is no, absolutely no doubt about the german cruelties in and before WWII. BUT, is that an excuse for everything the Allied did in the war? Is that an excuse to ignore, what allied soldiers did in Germany? If Nations, who call themselves civilized and have founded the UN Human Rights Declaration do, what they did, is that ok? Allied Air raids costed between 500.000 and 600.000 civilian victims. Allied troops , mainly Russians are responsible for more thean 850.000 rapes in and after 1945. Ethnic cleansing only in Eastern Germany costed more than 600.000 civilian victims. Do you remember the "Rheinwiesenlager" ? German Soldiers captured after mai 8th 1945 lost the status as POW. That meant starvation and deseases, what lead to approximately 500.000 victims. All numbers are official, could be many more. Official war losses were 14 million people. Yes , they began the war, they were guilty to some extend, but the treatment of Gemany was far worse, then history tells us today. And good treatment after 1949 was not the humanity of the US, that was the beginning cold war, Germans were needed.....
@@ursus911 It's like you storm in someone's house, burn it down, kill his wife and children, steal his possessions, then the house owner catches you and you tell him he has no right to harm you and that you want to contact your lawyer....
There was no concentration camps where allies would poison all the Germans as an infirior race. If your führer had won the war, you would never had suffered enough to understand that what you did was very very evil. It is wrong to blame a post war born German for it, but it is also wrong to allow any German to relativise the history.
Nice to see a human side to a sense less period, the sense of relief seems obvious despite the hardship
Happy to meet the Americans! This is something the USA should remember in these dark times when many of its own citizens dance upon its flag. My father was liberated by US soldiers & he always remembered their humanity.
Same here , my parents were liberated by Americans and Canadian troops , they were greatful , and so am I !!
Liberated from what?
Da war er wohl nicht in den Rheinwiesen Lagern gewesen,...?
@@norisboy100 Immer noch versucht, sich an eine entlarvte märchenhafte Behauptung amerikanischer Gräueltaten im Rheinwiesenlager zu klammern, die der kanadische Schriftsteller James Bacque 1989 vorlegte.
@@justinshultz9245 Your kidding right?
And then the Czechoslovaks got farked by 60 years of communism...
Yes, some people posting here either don't know or chose to forget about the Soviet Union invading Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Incredible Restoration and Amazing Publication
Thank You for This Great Work
Excellent footage and research. Kudos to you.
Не советую повторять.
I'd love to have one of those prime movers and in working order.
bUILD UR OWN FROM TRACTOR AND THESE DAYS THEY GO VERY FAST
new sub here. the color film lends a sense of immediacy. great stuff!
My father's unit, the 97th Infantry, couldn't have been too terribly far from here when this was shot.
at 4:07 a rare view on the late Leibermuster camouflage uniform worn by the soldier sitting outside the window of a truck.
Aha ! you see that too. My friend told me just an hour ago, i can't believe its true
god- how advanced and what year did that there camoflge uniform come out and who were the lucky ones too show itt off. ?????
It’s mind boggling to think of all the weapons and trucks to be sorted out
НИХЕРА людей жизнь не учит!!!!!Очень больно это осознавать😔
Да, 24 февраля, ровно в четыре часа Киев бомбили, нам говорили, так началася война.
Правильно будет нихуа😊
Welcome home 🏡..... 6 Jahre an der Front. Unvorstellbar!! Respekt 🙇
Unbelievably best to get to see such clips
Meanwhile the Czechs,were losing one tyranny for a worse and longer lasting one!
Longer but not worse.
the hell are you talking about. everything you see right now was built by Czechoslovakian communists. capitalists split the country in two (without asking people) and turned both countries into useless tourists distinations
@Kafa kafica We’ve escaped,but they’re still hassling us!
Let's hope we will not go through this ever again.
Im afraid it has to happen :( . You see it yourself around yourself....its too calm so long and humanity starts to thinking about bullshits, lgbt, so much byrocracy, "I need more personal safe space" etc over-sensitive stuf... then wars begins again and it resets so people starts to think about the main thing...survive...food, water, roof, heat... (sry, this is just my opinion and thought it is ok to write it here :))
@@MrKaltharIMHO I don't think that sensitivity and empathy and respect given to others would be ever the reason to start the war. It is usually the opposites that do, because it drives negative emotions and becomes the block in cooperation to solve problems. When the cooperation stops, conflict starts. If we don't respect one another, one starts denying the needs of the other one - a classic reason for a war.
@@Martinko_Pcik Well, I didnt write THAT will start war.... I mentioned that this "calm age" makes people think about things that are totally unnecessary and over...how to call it...totally 180 degrees of normal thinking. Im pretty sure during war or right after it nobody was thinking about "making new 20 genders" and such staff...its now, because young people are bored and have nothing serious what to do. They have food, water, comfort, safety and time for making up stupid things.
@@Martinko_Pcik And then...governments will start war about something and then it will reset. Then people will think about the basic things again :)
勝ち負けは関係なく、みんな戦争が終わって、ホッとした表情をしていますね。
Everyone looks relieved that the war is over.
These are Germans retreating back into Germany from Czechoslovakia. Military and civilian because they know what's in store if they stay.
You are right. Thank you for your comment on this.
Civilians are mostly Germans from part of Czechoslavika so I guess they feared that the Czechs wants to punish them for taking over their lands back in 1937 to 1939.
Later after the war Germans who still there are expelled from Czechoslavika.
@@DavBlc7 Yeah can you blame them after Germany invaded their country?
@ Weren't hundreds of thousands of 'German' Czechs driven out of Czechoslovakia at short notice after the German surrender, and many thousands were just murdered by the Czechs.
@@None-zc5vg Nice way to loose the high moral ground.
Incredible footage! Such a treasure to have these films
@5:33 -- Hardcore warrior right there, with his one-eyed comrade.
Those Germans were happy to be prisoners of the Yankees, and not to have fallen into Russian hands.
Sure were ------- because they knew what the Wehrmacht left behind in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania not to forget Poland Poland. A WASTELAND of wanton killing and destruction.
@@slimchancetoo Yes, it was, but the German prisoners had to pay a high price for it. Out of 95,000 prisoners in Stalingrad, 90,000 were murdered. Only alone in Stalingrad! As soon as the Americans, British and Russians were victorious, the rats came out of their holes and killed everything German. The first Chancellor Adenauer said: "Six million Germans disappeared after the surrender. Their murderers were in no way inferior to the Nazis". The bills are paid!
Dolphy ( adolph ) and Koba ( osipa vissarionovici ) was very good frendly before the war
Before the war they divided Poland, Rumania, Cehoslovacia, Finland
They helped each one with amy suply, etc...
@@adrianturcitu4770 They weren't. Czechoslovakia, for example, was destroyed thanks to traitors from Great Britain and France.
@@Lennepirat26 Paid? And how much did the USSR lose? Do you know? And this is taking into account the fact that it was not the USSR that began to bomb Germany on June 22, 1941!!! And the Germans came!
Отличное качество видео, смотрится как кино, а самом деле это реальные события 75 летней давности. Война - зло.
I was told the the majority of German soldiers wanted to surrender to the American and British forces, because being a pow in the Soviet occupation zone meant certain death for these good looking handsome men.
I knew a German who was 7 years old went the Americans came into his village The adults were told to line up on one side of the road and the children on the other, everyone was frightened and did not know what to expect. The children were then all given fresh bananas, something that they had not seen before. The adults had their details taken down and then set free. My friend said that he practically lived in the American camp for the next three years.
I've read many accounts where German civilians rounded up by the American forces were scared half to death and expecting the worst. Only to be stunned at how well they were treated. They were given fresh food, clothing, facilities to bathe since many had no running water. Many civilians felt that they were treated better by the Americans than by their own military forces.
In Deutschland gab es auch vor 1945 schon Bananen.
Scary to think WW2 ended only 76 years ago
Thanks for uploading this!
Мой отец казах по национальности, в эти дни был в Чехословакии и победу встретил папа в Праге. У меня есть фото. И вы его видите. Он там .
Папа, такой молодой, с боями прошедший от Сталинграда до Праги танкистом, если бы он видел эти кадры....
Ушёл добровольцем на фронт.
Шёл в бой со словами За Сталина, за Родину!!!
Пенсионерка Алтын Ай Казахстан
А теперь мы слышим в ответ от казахов не приятные слова, у вас там видимо тоже промытые имеются.Всегда считал Казахстан самым близким по духу народом, надеюсь ещё не всё потеряно в наших связях.
товарищ Алтын. Мой отец в это время был в госпитале в Кенигсберге после тяжелых ранения и контузии. И в Сталинграде мой отец тоже воевал, как и Ваш. Лучше бы наши отцы НЕ видели эту хронику, где наших врагов гостеприимно принимают погостить на некоторое время наши на некоторое время союзники. Вся победа американцев над этими немецко-фашистами состояла в том, что они спасли преступников от советских лагерей, открыв свои ворота для драпания немцев от армии советских победителей. Обнимаю Вас, дорогая соотечественница по СССР. Николай
@@odyssey1355 не просто так вы сшышите неприятные слова
@@ФедрФедров-ч4э Ну конечно же, не нужна вам была Советская власть, жили бы сейчас казахи как в Дубае...
@@odyssey1355 почитай сначала историю подъёма Казахстана ,а потом пиши.
Хочется вам хохлам рассорить России с Казахстаном.
Не выйдет казахи народ мудрый не то что вы..
I wonder if my 16year old father is in this footage somewhere - very interesting to view this. He told me that he retreated from Czech. pretty much on foot and transport when he was able to surrender en-masse to the Americans...?!
In these videos of the Wehrmacht moving in to surrender, there appears little in the way off animosity being expressed towards the Krauts by the allies. It must be that after the years of terrible fighting and other hardships, both sides are just relieved that the whole thing is finally over.
Respect between enemies is something you rarely see now. They still treated each others like fellow humans back in the day.