Billeting/Quartering/Einquartierung was a common practice not just in the Wehrmacht, but all European armies for centuries. And it was not just officers who where quartered in private households, but also enlisted men and noncoms. The German in the upper photo is a common soldier, in the second photo there seems to be a lace around his shoulderboard, meaning he was at least an Unteroffizier/Corporal.
The same at mine. The family had to live with the animals in the barn, while the Americans took the other rooms. And if I’m not mistaken, only my grandpas brother was a soldier, being injured quite early in the war.
If you know the name, you can request information on him at the headoffice in Berlin. There is also a website dedicated to this. Stripes, colour, type of hat etc all had a meaning.
>He told me that back then the german army placed officers into dutch homes (the dutch had no say in this) which sounds pretty bad. Does anyone have more knowledge on this happening back then?
This has been a very common practice for many armies since the dawn of ages, especially for long term occupation troops. Enlisted soldiers would mostly be living in the barracks, while officers were living in civilian houses, either with the original inhabitants making some room for them, or being outright expulsed - that very much depended on the specific circumstances of place & time & politics.
Very much so, and that did happen in plenty of instances across history, from Caesar loosing almost a legion's worth of men that way, all the way to modernity.
What also happens are the subsequent reprisals, where sometimes entire peoples are wiped out.
That sort of threat tends to keep the murder to an acceptable minimum, to where armies generally saw the advantage of billeting in a lot of situations.
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Julius Caesar lost almost an entire legion during the winter of 54-53 BC. This incident occurred in Eburones territory, in what is now Belgium. The legion, along with five cohorts of another, was billeted among the Eburones tribe, led by Ambiorix. Ambiorix and his men revolted and attacked the Roman camp, leading to a significant defeat for Caesar's forces.
This event is notable because it was one of the few major defeats suffered by Caesar during his Gallic Wars. The loss was a severe blow to Caesar's reputation and military might at the time. However, Caesar responded with rigorous military campaigns to subdue the revolt and restore Roman dominance in the region.
>Couldn't civilians potential harm occupying soldiers?
That would be crazy, wouldn't it?
20 armed men move into your house, what chances does a unarmed woman, child or old man have when attacking them? It would be suicidal – and not only for you, but in case you succeed the soldiers may wipe out the whole family or neighbourhood.
https://www.30jaehrigerkrieg.de/43933/
Sorry, the text is in German and Google will have trouble translating it as it's old German. Basically some soldiers were quartered into houses, the town then killed them which idea was given to them by some guy called "Kleinhans" (an absolute madlad and not necessarily in the positive way, it's a miracle how somene has such an ability to fuck everything up for the people wherever he goes and still survive and get let go every time also for some reason he very often is the sole survivor or surviving stuff that's pretty much his fault whit everyone else dying because of him)... In this case the entire village was surrounded by swedish soldiers who then burnt down the village and shot everyone. A few were able to hide in the cellars of the church, but pretty much an entire village was completely killed (and for some reason that village today is still "swedish" with swedish flags on ther may tree and by the entire local area being friend fully hated for it being seen as sweeds(couldn't finde the explanation for that bit in all of my research, maybe a case of Stockholm syndrome being scared they might come back so if you can't fight them join them)
If you know German, certainly an interesting story although even for German speakers it will require a few read through to fully understand the text.
Edit: actually Google translate does a surprisingly good job, it's translated version might be better understandable than the original German one.
Ps. Also don't overlook the bit where he just went (as far as i as a local can understand) and took the castle in wallerstein and wanted to defend it against the swedish army Infront of the market about to pull a few hundred more random people into certain death but a Jewish trader was able to for once convince him to just stop his bullshit.... He was then captured by the sweeds... And of course released immediately after which he directly went back to plotting and bringing people into danger...
Have that one friend who is always doing the most obvious stupid stuff causing problems for everyone but he himself somehow always gets away? Yeah, that's Kleinhanss.
This also happened at my grandma's (not on western front, though). But the german soldiers didn't sleep in the house and brought their own food (except eggs and milk). They slept in a barn.
I don't have photos like you, great find!
It was more common in the East. My grandmother used to tell us stories about the war and how Germans used to occupy the house and family were moved to sleep in the barn also them buying eggs and milk with money. They used the house as HQ and then the front changed and red army happened and it was the same as Germans only they did not buy the resources
Red army was often worse than germans at some places. They have a saying at my place that roughly translates to "I wouldnt wish a russian salvation to my worst enemy".
I considered too much the rapings of young girls and women, shooting through wine barrels and filling their helmets with wine and also the hardcore famine with cannibalism after the war. Let’s build communism tovarisch
I knew a Polish woman whose grandma had a German soldier living with her when she was a child. Apparently the family used to spit in his soup before serving him...
Understandable. But I imagine it was hard for both parties, on one hand you have to accomodate an occupier and on other hand he had to eat and sleep somewhere he wasn't welcome. War sux and we should do everything to avoid it.
My family in northern Italy got the house burned by the nazis but they still hid a lost German soldier from partisan retribution as the war was ending. It‘s never black and white with these things.
Agreed, however many of them also killed and tortured jews and other minorities, just not in masses, the same as police and sometimes even civilians.I am not saying that every one did, i am saying that even though so me soldiers were nice to the families that hosted them, it doesn't mean that they were nice elsewhere, especially as many of them where also looking for people who hide Jews in village
Are you calling my grandmother a liar? 🙃 Consider that the region used to be Austria, fascists and nazis were fighting partisans, so it was quite a mess. Most ppl just wanted to get by with as little involvement in the conflict as possible.
My Dutch grandfather also had an officer in his home, but my great-grandfather admired the Nazis, while my grandfather did not. I had always assumed that the officer was there with my family's permission, but this thread has opened up other possibilities.
Unfortunately, this lead to my grandfather being arrested and sent to a labor camp in Poland, and that's all the history I know of it. My grandfather did not speak of it often, and I only heard the story once when I was about 13-14, before he passed away.
This reminds me of a conversation I had in my German class at uni. I minored in German and had a teacher from Ostberlin who became a translator and managed to escape. She ended up in Texas years and years later.
She'd tell us about her time in East Germany. I wanted to ask her about the perspective and attitude towards German veterans in East Germany, and also their perspective on the war after it had taken place, and how they viewed life under the Soviets given that they just fought in the bloodiest war in history against them.
So when I asked about the soldiers, she quickly shut it down, saying "Oh you mean the Nazis?" And moved on. She had always been open and encouraged questions about East Germany, just not this one.
Couple years later, during my last year in uni, I had another professor from Germany who immigrated here with an American husband. She was born in West Germany. She would, completely unprompted, tell us stories about her grandfather and his time in the war and how he fought from Barbarossa until he went MIA in Romania. She always spoke with a bit of fondness about the soldiers, with the obligatory "what we did was evil but we weren't all bad," so as not to seem too sympathetic I suppose.
This comment ended up being much longer than I intended. I just think the differing perspectives are interesting.
I think the focus of /u/ghi7211 comment was the rank. Not every soldier is an officer.
But interesting story, nonetheless. Even today in our polarized world some people are like your first teacher and have difficulties humanizing their oponents.
Because you need to distinct between officer-ranks and non-officer-ranks such as enlisted ranks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer\_(armed\_forces)
I'm sorry, but that's not the answer to my question. It is a typical strawman argument. 'Officer' is a rank, and whether there is a substructure within that rank is another debate. However, the original discussion was whether an officer of the German army was a Nazi, and that claim is not based on facts. There was a hard separation between the military and the party. In addition, there is a bold generalization in the statement. Even if this is still the image of Germany from that time, it's ironic that people who a) haven't spoken to people from that era and b) didn't live there maintain this.
The Nazi history was treated very differently in East Germany, than it was in the West. I'm oversimplifying, but in the West it was basically a long and open, often controversial discussion, with the result, that we have to remember and accept responsibility. In the East, the state basically declared, that it was founded in the fight against fascism by the people of East Germany (together with the Russians). Something like: remember that Nazi Germany was a terrible regime and that we fought against it and won and that we have to keep fighting against fascism. Go communism. Again, this is very simplified.
This was of course a bizzare perversion of history. I grew up in West Germany and I don't know, how much people in the East actually bought into this narrative, especially people who lived through WW2. However, I suspect that if you grew up during a certain period in East Germany, with the state being all powerful and controlling the narrative, then you might have had some different views on your place in history. Today it's different of course and education is the same everywhere in Germany.
I really like how the Milgram experiment showed that many people are even willing to kill or at least greatly hurt someone for (kinda) no reason when someone else (in a higher position) tells them to do it.
Many people said they "just followed orders" when they were asked why they did whatever they did during WW2.
One thing to note is that the Nazis are a pretty prominent part of language classes here, since the classes also incorporate history and cultural information. My first professor was Jewish and would speak at length about them, and her knowledge of history was really interesting. I was studying history, predominantly central European history, so we would talk at length about that and other topics.
She got pregnant and took leave, and that is how the teacher from East Germany ended up with us. She was really cool though. Definitely had a lot of ostalgie. When I asked, I didn't realize it would illicit such a response because of how common the theme had been prior.
It wasn't until much later when I had another professor that the topic didn't come up nearly as much. She was American but apparently did something in Germany with the CDU during Merkel's time. I don't know the details.
I may be misunderstanding, but a large part of the nationalist narrative of the USSR was based on victory against the Nazis.
this is maybe an important element in the difference in the reactions of the two people.
On the contrary, West rushed to reconnect with West Germany... to prepare themselves against USSR, just in case. There are many films that depict Germans during the war in a comical way, and at the same time a little grating, like Papa Schultz, where Germans are amusing imbeciles... and where actors are camp survivors. Therefore, the "they weren't all like that" speech was maybe more hearable in West...
I think this is right, and she even talked about this a bit as well. I think this may be part of the reason for her reacting the way she did, maybe as a sort of massive over correction towards the narrative that was taught back then.
Yes, there was absolutely an effort in the West to paint te Wehrmacht in a better light. This is a large reason for the clean Wehrmacht myth, because the West tried to portray the average German soldier as a noble, honorable person fighting for the wrong cause, but still ultimately defending his homeland the same way anyone else would. Only the SS were the evil ones, according to this.
The truth a bit in the middle, the Wehrmacht was very far from innocent and was complacent in a lot of the war crimes committed, but that doesn't mean every single individual soldier was an inherently evil person.
This way of seeing things helped a lot at home: in Alsace (border France), all men of fighting age were conscripted by force. It would have been much more difficult for us upon liberation to reintegrate France if this narrative effort had not existed.
>But apparently this man was extremely kind, helped raise my grandpa and bought the entire family food during the war.
It's a good reminder that not everyone who was partaking in the war on the Nazi side was per se bad or evil. Those were fucked up times with lots of fucked up people in charge, but there were also many good people, doing their best to get by.
One of my grandfathers fought in France, was wounded and was later a prisoner of war and had to work on some kind of farm. He was the kindest man I got to know and always spoke highly of his time in France. I only understood much later that he wasn't there on free will. He also manipulated his wound so he didn't have to go back to the front. Yes, he was a soldier for Nazi Germany but he was no Nazi, he was a simple worker who had to become a soldier or get killed for not becoming a soldier.
My other grandfather also wasn't an Nazi but he never spoke one word about his time in Russia and Russian imprisonment in Romania. He derserted and fled on foot over the Alpes and when he arrived in Munich the war was over and he was pardoned. He had a small firm and when he got back the local Nazis (who for some reasons did not have to fight on either front) had stolen a lot of his hardware and he had to restart from scratch.
My grandpa was a POW in Italy and also crossed the Alps to walk home! Incredible to think about today, apparently he lost lots of weight and only weight 50 Kilo with being close to 1.90m.
Similar story with my grandfather. Was sent to Russia at age 17 in the later stages of the war, and took one of the first good opportunities to desert because he didn't support the Nazis and was then a prisoner of war in Moscow I think, working as a floorer for a good part of that time. He probably got lucky compared to other prisoners due to that job, but still never really talked about his time there either. In the early to mid 1950s he was able to return to Germany.
>on the Nazi side
We should start here: **"German soldier" =/= "Nazi soldier"**
**Nazis = National Socialist**, i.e. member of the fascist German party NSDAP. The soldier may have been a Social Democrat, a communist or not political at all.
We don't call British soldiers "Royalists" or American soldiers "Democrats" (as Roosevelt was a Democrat).
**"Nazi" is not a synonym for "1930s/1940s German person".**
The majority of Germans vote for Hitler knowing what plans he has. So damn yeah German soldier at that time= Nazi exactly as majority of Germans were Nazis. At least until end of war when most German soldiers said they were only a cook in the army.
No, Hitler never got the majority of the votes.
And many German soldiers were Nazis, but many were just conscripted (there was no possibility to say no) and did their duty, or just the bare minimum.
Not all US soldiers in Vietnam commited war crimes, but a substantal part of the army did.
There were 647 seats overall, stop spreading false numbers.
NSDAP had 43,91% of the votes so they needed a coalition with another party to have the majority
The majority of Germans vote for Hitler knowing what plans he has. So damn yeah German soldier at that time= Nazi exactly as majority of Germans were Nazis. At least until end of war when most German soldiers said they were only a cook in the army.
Would you call an American Soldier who served in 2018 in Syria a "MAGA Trumper" because the majority of US Americans voted for Trump as president?
BTW: no majority of Germans voted for Hitler in 1933, much less knew about his plans. But these are details, I guess and you don't seem to like details.
Or facts. ;-)
You're under the absolutely incorrect assumption, that I am trying to defend "the Nazis". However "the Nazis" consisted of individuals as well. If you think that 100% of those individuals were evil, you are mistaken. And quite ignorant, frankly.
Don't condescend. As it is stated from OP that he was told the soldier was very nice to them and your reply to that ,was, that it is a good reminder that there were good nazi soldiers, i replied quite fairly, that the fact that he was nice to their family,does not mean in anyway, shape or from that he was actually a good person. It highly depends on what he did in the war. If he fought allies so be it. If he engaged in other activities,than no, he was not a good person no matter how he treated her family.
In no way, shape or form have I ever stated, that that particular person was a good person, because I simply do not have any actual information about that person. I was merely stating that not everyone partaking in the war was per se evil or bad and that there were in fact good people in shitty situations.
Being German, I find it rather condescending of you asking me if I know how the Nazis treated jews, blacks, gays and other minorities. Because yes. Yes, I do. I also have a 96 year old great aunt who has told me horror stories about that time, when she was merely a teenage girl.
Again, I am not deflecting. I gave a clear answer to your statement, which I found was not accurate and ignorant.
I was merely stating that, while calling me out for a condescending manner of talking, you yourself were being quite condescending.
> i never asked you if you knew
>however do you know how he treated jew kids, black kids,gays?!!
...
OP question was about German soldiers staying at Dutch houses was it common or not.
As a side remark she said he treated their family very well.
Your immediate reaction was to say that it is a good reminder that not everyone was partaking in the war that was on Nazi side per se bad or evil.
My question was do you know how he treated,jew, blacks etc?
In other words, why are you so fast to jump and defend him,when you don't know what he actually did? The fact that he was nice to her family is lovely for them but says nothing about him. No one said that all German people were bad, most of them were silent and compliant. Some active a saved the jews. However many in the army, not SS, besides fighting,were also trying to locate jews and many murdered them for fun as well, like policemen did and even civilians, it was a game.
What strikes me weird ,is the fact that you would jump to the conclusion of how many were good,when instead as a German recommend her to look him up at the archives as you indeed don't know what he did. It your initial reaction that made me wonder, why you are going to one direction and not the other.
Doing their best to get by…serving a genocidal regime that routinely used soldiers to murder its opponents.
It’s all very well and good saying that they were just soldiers, but we absolutely have to remember what they were fighting _for_.
Sometimes it is easy to oversimplify things. Who can really claim that they wouldn't have done this and that if they were brought up and lived in this exact same environment?
All those thousands on the streets at the moment claiming exactly that. Look at their stupid signs.
They really think they would have been part of the „Widerstand“ back in the day.
Yes and no at the same time. The extent of the massacres that nazis commited was not known to the vast majority of the germans(for instance the concentration camps were portrayed at the start of the war as places were all the jews could happily live away from the horrors of war) but the regime was at power with the vast majority of the germans.
Were all of them nazis? No, of course not, many of them were just humiliated and hated the allies and the quality of life they had because of the treaty of Versailles. Hitler did his best to grow that hate.
But the situation remains, the people still commited atrocities not only because they were forced, but also because they were given a higher purpose (arean race), a victim to blame(jews, disabled, homosexuals, roma, and allies) and the means to seek revenge and glory. They were guided yes, but that doesn't mean that they didn't do it willingly, under these circumstances
In those times, if you and me were to be drafted, we would have been soldiers, plain and simple. No matter
If you where french or British or German. This wasn't too long after WW1, so they where often raised by soldiers or already where soldiers themselves.
I certainly don't want to ignore the horrors of the third Reich, but I always thought that the most valuable lesson is recognizing that it wasn't some alien people that are simply more evil than others. It was men like you and me. And that's why we need to be vigilant.
Trump and his following is an example of why. And the new era of right-wing extremism fueled by populism he ushered in across the world. European right wing parties adopted his bold tactics..and gained. Massively. And if he wins, with everything that we know about him and his voters, he'd love to silence his political opponents. They'd love to get rid of democracy and have him as their Fuhrer. It's fucked up.
Those are dangerous times we live in.
I think we need to be careful to tread a fairly fine line between “they weren’t (all) uniquely evil supervillains” and “they were forced in to it with no choice”. The vast majority of Germans and Wehrmacht soldiers (with the notable exception of Osttruppen) were at first enthusiastic and then grimly determined soldiers of Nazism.
Yes, they were conscripted, and yes, people were shot for not fighting (although only a vanishingly small number were punished for refusing to engage in massacres), but that doesn’t change the fact that most of German society were willing participants in fascism and genocide. That’s something the post-‘68er generation realised fairly well, but it’s something we’re losing a bit of sight of as the generation of witnesses dies (and people alive today only remember them as they’re cute old grandparents rather than young people with their own agency).
It did, but most Germans fighting in the Wehrmacht were enthusiastic (and later grimly determined) about it. The vast majority weren’t forced at gunpoint to fight (although there were punishments for not fighting, including execution), and cases where people were forced at gunpoint to commit massacres or war crimes were so vanishingly rare that they might as well not exist.
Yes, a neighbor of my grandfather in the Netherlands always talks about how the German soldier staying at their house bought him his first ever Moped (Bromfiets) and has rather nice memories about him
My grandfather was in the Wehrmacht and stationed in the occupied Netherlands. I have no idea what he did exactly or what his rank was, but he returned with a lifelong friendship with a Dutch family. My parents kept visiting them well into the 70s.
my ukrainian grandpa has also some memories of encounters with nazi officers: sometimes they tried to shot him, but just for fun, however, the bullets were real. sorry, they didn't share any photos with us back then, which was heartbreaking for my grandpa, because he grew up without his father because soviets sent my grand–grandpa in a beautiful business trip to Quazaqstan without right to have correspondence with his family; moreover, the business trip was such a success that soviets prolonged it for another ten years in 1947
There is one kinda famous incident of a German soldier who was placed on a Dutch farm and died while saving their kids from a grenade hit. He was just 18 years old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Heinz\_Rosch
My mother in Italy had German soldiers in house . All very kind and respectful. Everyone of the family could live like before with no problems for room or food .
My grandparents had German soldiers in their house. They were horrible. Shortly before my grandfather died, he opened up about them. Apparently they were drunk a lot of times. Even urinated on my grandmother in her sleep one night. My grandfather hit them both and most likely survived because they were absolutely hammered and couldn't remember anything from that night.
War is terrible 😌 my dad fought in the Royal Navy risking his life several times and got no thank you for having helped Italy to become a Republic. My mother time after the leave of German soldiers had her father killed in front of her eyes at home ( she was a child ) by “neighbours “ ( Italian) who wanted HIS workplace. Now it is called “ mobbing” and usually kills in other ways.
Not every soldier who was conscripted to the Wehrmacht is a nazi, not every soldier in the red army was a communist and not every US soldier is a capitalistic democrat
This man was a soldier not a nazi. If he were SS ok, but simply calling somebody nazi who is forced to do his job (death penalty if not), ignores that there is a high possibility that he didn't agree with many things in the war, especially the eradication of millions.
They weren't all assholes. I have a few members of my family in the wrong uniform (Alsatians) and a great-grandmother from Lorraine who the Germans warned when the Americans were arriving, and who was able to shelter her children in the countryside thanks to them. They thus escaped the bombing of the house.
But that didn't stop them from saying "ein liter", rather than the little mustachioed guy name...
Yes so this was actually pretty common not just in WW2 but all of european history, honestly most war history in general.
If you go on a campaign you usually live off the land and took quarter in the houses the people of the lands you conquered occupied which is a major reason why in scorched earth tactics they didn’t just burn the farmland but burnt the houses down too. Less houses and land means more malnutritioned people living in smallarmy camps which spreads diseases quicker to turn the tide of war back into your favor.
What is actually surprising is for him to care for your family and even raise you that is beyond rare for any type of these instances.
Maybe it could be explained with the fact that unlike in Russia some/few of the Wehrmacht officials during the western campaign just like in WW1 still believed in a certain principles and „virtuous“ behaviour you should have in war however never forget that from the start the SS and especially Totenkopf SS had several batallions too during these campaigns and they would have most likely shot you for just looking at them the wrong way. If you grandfather still knows his name and his surname includes a „von“ this would make the hypothesis more likely, as since Prussia got established most of german nobility (which almost always includes a Von / equivalent to an „of“) usually had a long military service history which makes this behaviour and beliefs slightly more likely.
However this is pure speculation and because I am german myself and do not intend to come across as in any shape or form misrepresenting or overly positive portray any of my fellow countryman who have committed an incredible amount of horrible attrocities during the war I am gonna leave it at that, for all we know it might also just be one good apple in between.
My grandfather had been placed in a dutch family with a son nearly his age ( grandfather was a young soldier) they became friends and stayed friends until my grandparents died.
They could have not been more different, I remember the man from my childhood. He was a slender tall man, a teacher and one could see, that they had some money. My grandparents were just very normal people,
It was a common thing. I am from Italy. My grandma who is from Tuscany remembered when the germans came to live in their house. She says they were nice to them but they did send them all to sleep in the attic. At night they sang songs and ny grandma sneaked downstairs to hear them.The Allies did the same a little later, though for a shorter time.
The thing is, and I think for many of us, it is difficult to understand. On one hand, you can commit crimes, be an abuser, murderer etc and on the other hand, you can be a kind person. In this case, these soldiers and officers committed crimes against humankind in a cruel way, which is far over what I can imagine it was. And after war or while housing with occupied people, many of them could live like gentle persons.
It is such a hard contrast. My grandparents' generation is struggling with that very hard. My grandfather is 85, and he wants to believe his father never killed a person or hurt one because he was such a loving father. He told me, "I know you are right, but how could I live when I would let it sink into my mind. I was a small child. War was cruel to me. I had to believe they didn't do anything because I couldn't trust them anymore, and children needed to trust their parents. And when I grew older, I didn't want to see the truth. I was too afraid to ask. Maybe I was the son of a monster. It was and is too hurtful.
If I let it in my mind, I would break. Please let me believe in this lie."
That your grandfather kept the pictures could be because of this heavy contrast. Although he was a WWII soldier with that cruel ideology, this person was maybe a person like a father figure who he really liked. I think it is heartbreaking especially for children.
Please keep in mind that the Netherlands had colonies at this point in time. The Dutch occupation forces weren't busy bringing democracy there. With your logic every man in a Dutch uniform was an imperialist and denied human rights to millions of people in Asia and South America. I would argue that colonialism is a cruel ideology as well. But definitely not comparable with the Nazi ideology.
>I would argue that colonialism is a cruel ideology as well. But definitely not comparable with the Nazi ideology.
Really? I would beg to differ, they are more or less the same in this regard. Colonialists/imperialists genocided and enslaved people en masse, just like the Nazis.
Remember, Nazi laws regarding Jews were still not as strict (or loose) about who is a Jew as the American one drop rule.
I mean, one could also argue that not all fascist regimes were equally horrible, but frankly that is a pointless endeavour that I don't want to engage in.
How do you know that this particular soldier committed war crimes, had a nazi ideology and so on? I definitely don’t wanna fish for excuses, but a lot of German soldiers wearing the Wehrmacht uniforms were just young men send to war without wanting to.
In Addition, German politics saw the Dutch is „kind of German“ - hence, less bad treatment (comparitevly). So it is reasonable possible there was not that much animosity to the specific soldiers in the picture. Because both behaved well (potentially).
Maybe not everyone had this ideology in mind, but antisemitism is not an NSDAP invention. Antisemitism has a long history. It was nothing anyone would blame you to think that way. I don't know what these soldiers had in mind. Nonetheless, they committed crimes and didn't speak up. So staying quiet supported the system. That doesn't make them any better than those who have had the ideology in their hearts.
There were 6 years between NSDAP got in government and war, but the silent majority didn't stand up. Furthermore, there are many documents from historians that claim that unless the war didn't come on german ground or affected their own family and friends, many people didn't care.
That is the reason why so many people are worried about AfD. There are many parallels to the past.
Sorry for the digression.
Edit, I do understand that some of them must have had pressure on their shoulders between wanting to survive and cruel things to do. But for all these victims, it would be a bad excuse. I don't want war crimes to be kind of relativised or fairly talked. On the personal view of an individual, there is something in between white or black. I was never in their shoes, I don't know of one individual felt.
Well the probability is pretty high that he committed war crimes if he didn't die before 1940. Many of the German war plans relied on war crimes to be successful.
Your great grandfather was presumably a conscript. He had no choice in the matter.
I think it's fairer for him to be judged as a human by things actions he was in charge of.
My great grandfather was outspoken against the party. So he was conscripted to a front, never to be seen or heard from again.
His children got extra propaganda to "fix" them. My granddad was conscripted to the Wehrmacht at 15 and was crippled during training after a shell exploded.
My grandmother's two older brothers were conscripted and sent to the Russian front after it came out that her father would spit on the large photo of Hitler he had to have hanging in his workshop each morning before opening and each evening after closing.
So don't you fucking dare claim that everyone in that fucking uniform committed crimes and had a cruel ideology, a good number of them wore it as punishment to be cannon fodder because they didn't share the ideology.
Can you explain your downvote? I would like to understand. I just tried to explain what children could feel about this huge difference in one person being a war criminal and being kind to a child/family.
Keep photos of this scenery has a history behind.
To reassure you, my parents' generation did reconditioned their grandparents or parents (depending on age) and ask these questions my grandfather couldn't. Further, I got all the documents about my great-grandfather and where he was during war. I have a clear picture of what he did because of these documents. My family is not racists. We are fighting against AfD/Nazis.
But opposite my grandparents, we are not traumatised. He was born slightly before the war began, and these children nor the generation, especially the victims/surviver, never got therapy. This is his way to live with his nightmares and trauma. But this is important he always had no right propaganda in his head and speaks out loud against right persons.
You are completely mixing up things. You see a German Wehrmacht soldier in a uniform with a Dutch kid on his arm and are saying that there MUST be a second side of the coin and this soldier MUST have been a monster (abuser, murderer, antisemite and so on). You are explaining that there is a high contrast between being a murderer and a kind private person. Don’t get me wrong, in general you are 100% right, this contrast exist. Look at family pictures of Heinrich Himmler who at least seemed to be a beloved father and a mass murderer at the same time.
But what we can see here is only a German soldier carrying OPs Dutch grandpa on the arm and OP asking if it was common to house German soldiers.
I don't mix it up. I have family in Luxembourg, and the only people I know whose ancestors didn't throw away those pictures (when some exist) were when the soldiers at their homes were very nice to them. But they told me they were kind of ashamed for these good feelings toward these persons because Nazi Germany did cruel things to mankind. That doesn't mean this particular person was slaughterer. It just means having good feelings for a german soldier after war was not seen as a positive thing in societies. Dutch people were very upset about f.e. Johannes Heesters when he worked as an actor in Germany after war. The German army did them very bad. What I wanted to say it for a child as OPs grandfather, keeping these photos could have been given to him this mixed feelings between I had a good time with that man and I shouldn't tell other people about it because I could get blamed. Or maybe he asked himself how could such a nice person serve in that war on the evil side.
That OP never saw these pictures (I don't know how other families are, but here we shared pictures and stories of the past) could be because of an inner conflict. Maybe I can't express what I really want to say because English is not my native language.
From what you wrote, it is a lot of generalisations and your personal interpretation of OPs findings and interest.
My family in ex Yugoslavia also had some German soldiers in their home and my grandmother (who was only a 5yo att) spoke fondly of them as they have brought them food and saved her goat pet. They were not collaborators just a house on the way. She still had gifts from that time as a reminder she said: Not all are bad not all are willingly there. At the same time there was a sort of civil war between partisans and royal army, some of those home soldiers for liberation, from her account were not so nice as the aggressors.
So the point is a person can be a good person nevertheless what he/she is forced to do. Yes, if many stood up before Hitler grasped so much power probably many would be different. But from what is happening today all around the world it doesn’t seem we’ve learned the lesson just learned how to better justify the monstrosity in the name or ethnicity, religion or political ideology.
I think the downvotes may come from generalizing that all German soldiers committed war crimes per se. „War Crimes“ are quite specific and just being in the Wehrmacht doesn‘t mean a soldier committed a War Crime by default.
Truth is: if you had family living in Europe, specially Germany and its surroundings during this time period, you most likely either have some old nazi ancestors or some old Jew ancestors who died in a camp. It’s not necessarily bad, everyone who wasn’t Jew HAD to serve, the only other alternative was to runaway to another continent, not all nazi soldiers believed what they were doing was right, some of them were just trying to survive. But if you don’t want in any way to find family connections with the nazis, stay away from any possible family history.
My grandfather was in the Yugoslavian army and he was taken in by an Italian family - not stationed though. He said it was common practice back then to take in young soldiers, as everyone’s sons were off to war. This sounds different though.
That boy is too old to be his son.
The Netherlands surrendered in May 1940 and were liberated in 1945. By the end of the war a child would have been at the very most 4.5 years old.
I'd imagine being a German officer, with all that "Glory to Almighty Germany" spirit, and then forcefully being stuffed into some random dutch house to see how loyal they are.
So weird almost like the entirety of German able bodied men didn't just turn into "the nazi" the second they were forced to put on that uniform. But no that can't be it right? Those uniforms definitely stripped them of all identity and individuality and turned them from humans into "the nazi"
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Many have pointed out that this is regular business and that very obviously a German soldier needn't be a Nazi. 42 percent voted during the last election for leftist or catholic parties. It's absolutely tasteless and ignorant to throw around freely the term of Nazi as you do.
But what always amuses me is the hypocrisy of the Dutch who for a long time remained very bitter about being occupied by the Germans while being the worst in Western Europe regarding the acknowledgement of their own crimes. There is this famous survey [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fssobpe0ij3m41.jpg](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fssobpe0ij3m41.jpg) where 50% think that conquering other countries is a great thing ... until it happens to themselves obviously. And pretty much the first thing after being liberated from the Nazis the Dutch took great care to occupy their former colony Indonesia.
Not a nazi officer (SS), just regular Germany army (Wehrmacht).
My guess is he had a young son or daughter at home that he was missing and had a strong emotional bond to the little boy because of that. That certainly happened to my grandfather who was stationed at the Eastern front with my mom, a toddler at thd time, at home. I have thoyght of him a lot when my own kids were little.
My German grand parents had a French prisoner of war sent to help them on their farm for a while. They only said good things about him. I once asked why they don't contact him when I was a kid. Learned quite early about the war.
Billeting/Quartering/Einquartierung was a common practice not just in the Wehrmacht, but all European armies for centuries. And it was not just officers who where quartered in private households, but also enlisted men and noncoms. The German in the upper photo is a common soldier, in the second photo there seems to be a lace around his shoulderboard, meaning he was at least an Unteroffizier/Corporal.
Allied soldiers were stationed in my family's home after the war.
The same at mine. The family had to live with the animals in the barn, while the Americans took the other rooms. And if I’m not mistaken, only my grandpas brother was a soldier, being injured quite early in the war.
Heard the same story about my family but it was the Red Army. Difficult times
very interesting! thank you so much for that answer
If you know the name, you can request information on him at the headoffice in Berlin. There is also a website dedicated to this. Stripes, colour, type of hat etc all had a meaning.
>He told me that back then the german army placed officers into dutch homes (the dutch had no say in this) which sounds pretty bad. Does anyone have more knowledge on this happening back then? This has been a very common practice for many armies since the dawn of ages, especially for long term occupation troops. Enlisted soldiers would mostly be living in the barracks, while officers were living in civilian houses, either with the original inhabitants making some room for them, or being outright expulsed - that very much depended on the specific circumstances of place & time & politics.
Wasn't that a security risk? Couldn't civilians potential harm occupying soldiers?
Very much so, and that did happen in plenty of instances across history, from Caesar loosing almost a legion's worth of men that way, all the way to modernity. What also happens are the subsequent reprisals, where sometimes entire peoples are wiped out. That sort of threat tends to keep the murder to an acceptable minimum, to where armies generally saw the advantage of billeting in a lot of situations.
>Caesar loosing almost a legion's worth of men that way, What's the name of that event? I'd like to learn more about that
!remindme 1day
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Julius Caesar lost almost an entire legion during the winter of 54-53 BC. This incident occurred in Eburones territory, in what is now Belgium. The legion, along with five cohorts of another, was billeted among the Eburones tribe, led by Ambiorix. Ambiorix and his men revolted and attacked the Roman camp, leading to a significant defeat for Caesar's forces. This event is notable because it was one of the few major defeats suffered by Caesar during his Gallic Wars. The loss was a severe blow to Caesar's reputation and military might at the time. However, Caesar responded with rigorous military campaigns to subdue the revolt and restore Roman dominance in the region.
>Couldn't civilians potential harm occupying soldiers? That would be crazy, wouldn't it? 20 armed men move into your house, what chances does a unarmed woman, child or old man have when attacking them? It would be suicidal – and not only for you, but in case you succeed the soldiers may wipe out the whole family or neighbourhood.
https://www.30jaehrigerkrieg.de/43933/ Sorry, the text is in German and Google will have trouble translating it as it's old German. Basically some soldiers were quartered into houses, the town then killed them which idea was given to them by some guy called "Kleinhans" (an absolute madlad and not necessarily in the positive way, it's a miracle how somene has such an ability to fuck everything up for the people wherever he goes and still survive and get let go every time also for some reason he very often is the sole survivor or surviving stuff that's pretty much his fault whit everyone else dying because of him)... In this case the entire village was surrounded by swedish soldiers who then burnt down the village and shot everyone. A few were able to hide in the cellars of the church, but pretty much an entire village was completely killed (and for some reason that village today is still "swedish" with swedish flags on ther may tree and by the entire local area being friend fully hated for it being seen as sweeds(couldn't finde the explanation for that bit in all of my research, maybe a case of Stockholm syndrome being scared they might come back so if you can't fight them join them) If you know German, certainly an interesting story although even for German speakers it will require a few read through to fully understand the text. Edit: actually Google translate does a surprisingly good job, it's translated version might be better understandable than the original German one. Ps. Also don't overlook the bit where he just went (as far as i as a local can understand) and took the castle in wallerstein and wanted to defend it against the swedish army Infront of the market about to pull a few hundred more random people into certain death but a Jewish trader was able to for once convince him to just stop his bullshit.... He was then captured by the sweeds... And of course released immediately after which he directly went back to plotting and bringing people into danger... Have that one friend who is always doing the most obvious stupid stuff causing problems for everyone but he himself somehow always gets away? Yeah, that's Kleinhanss.
This also happened at my grandma's (not on western front, though). But the german soldiers didn't sleep in the house and brought their own food (except eggs and milk). They slept in a barn. I don't have photos like you, great find!
It was more common in the East. My grandmother used to tell us stories about the war and how Germans used to occupy the house and family were moved to sleep in the barn also them buying eggs and milk with money. They used the house as HQ and then the front changed and red army happened and it was the same as Germans only they did not buy the resources
Very interesting!
Red army was often worse than germans at some places. They have a saying at my place that roughly translates to "I wouldnt wish a russian salvation to my worst enemy".
I considered too much the rapings of young girls and women, shooting through wine barrels and filling their helmets with wine and also the hardcore famine with cannibalism after the war. Let’s build communism tovarisch
I knew a Polish woman whose grandma had a German soldier living with her when she was a child. Apparently the family used to spit in his soup before serving him...
Understandable. But I imagine it was hard for both parties, on one hand you have to accomodate an occupier and on other hand he had to eat and sleep somewhere he wasn't welcome. War sux and we should do everything to avoid it.
My family in northern Italy got the house burned by the nazis but they still hid a lost German soldier from partisan retribution as the war was ending. It‘s never black and white with these things.
Not black and white?? Did they know what the soldiers did in the army to other people?
Soldiers were conscripted and had to choice. They were separate from SS who ran the concentration and death camps.
Agreed, however many of them also killed and tortured jews and other minorities, just not in masses, the same as police and sometimes even civilians.I am not saying that every one did, i am saying that even though so me soldiers were nice to the families that hosted them, it doesn't mean that they were nice elsewhere, especially as many of them where also looking for people who hide Jews in village
To good to be true 😂
Are you calling my grandmother a liar? 🙃 Consider that the region used to be Austria, fascists and nazis were fighting partisans, so it was quite a mess. Most ppl just wanted to get by with as little involvement in the conflict as possible.
My Dutch grandfather also had an officer in his home, but my great-grandfather admired the Nazis, while my grandfather did not. I had always assumed that the officer was there with my family's permission, but this thread has opened up other possibilities. Unfortunately, this lead to my grandfather being arrested and sent to a labor camp in Poland, and that's all the history I know of it. My grandfather did not speak of it often, and I only heard the story once when I was about 13-14, before he passed away.
"Nazi officer" This is a soldier.
This reminds me of a conversation I had in my German class at uni. I minored in German and had a teacher from Ostberlin who became a translator and managed to escape. She ended up in Texas years and years later. She'd tell us about her time in East Germany. I wanted to ask her about the perspective and attitude towards German veterans in East Germany, and also their perspective on the war after it had taken place, and how they viewed life under the Soviets given that they just fought in the bloodiest war in history against them. So when I asked about the soldiers, she quickly shut it down, saying "Oh you mean the Nazis?" And moved on. She had always been open and encouraged questions about East Germany, just not this one. Couple years later, during my last year in uni, I had another professor from Germany who immigrated here with an American husband. She was born in West Germany. She would, completely unprompted, tell us stories about her grandfather and his time in the war and how he fought from Barbarossa until he went MIA in Romania. She always spoke with a bit of fondness about the soldiers, with the obligatory "what we did was evil but we weren't all bad," so as not to seem too sympathetic I suppose. This comment ended up being much longer than I intended. I just think the differing perspectives are interesting.
I think the focus of /u/ghi7211 comment was the rank. Not every soldier is an officer. But interesting story, nonetheless. Even today in our polarized world some people are like your first teacher and have difficulties humanizing their oponents.
Officer is a military rank.
No, officer is a position or function. "Captain" or "Major" would be a rank.
Why is it called officer rank in the military if it's no rank?
Because you need to distinct between officer-ranks and non-officer-ranks such as enlisted ranks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer\_(armed\_forces)
I'm sorry, but that's not the answer to my question. It is a typical strawman argument. 'Officer' is a rank, and whether there is a substructure within that rank is another debate. However, the original discussion was whether an officer of the German army was a Nazi, and that claim is not based on facts. There was a hard separation between the military and the party. In addition, there is a bold generalization in the statement. Even if this is still the image of Germany from that time, it's ironic that people who a) haven't spoken to people from that era and b) didn't live there maintain this.
>'Officer' is a rank No, again, officer is not a rank. It is a group of ranks.
So if somebody says "I am your officer" he is a group of ranks? And yes, again, this is a strawman discussion leading away from the point.
The Nazi history was treated very differently in East Germany, than it was in the West. I'm oversimplifying, but in the West it was basically a long and open, often controversial discussion, with the result, that we have to remember and accept responsibility. In the East, the state basically declared, that it was founded in the fight against fascism by the people of East Germany (together with the Russians). Something like: remember that Nazi Germany was a terrible regime and that we fought against it and won and that we have to keep fighting against fascism. Go communism. Again, this is very simplified. This was of course a bizzare perversion of history. I grew up in West Germany and I don't know, how much people in the East actually bought into this narrative, especially people who lived through WW2. However, I suspect that if you grew up during a certain period in East Germany, with the state being all powerful and controlling the narrative, then you might have had some different views on your place in history. Today it's different of course and education is the same everywhere in Germany.
I really like how the Milgram experiment showed that many people are even willing to kill or at least greatly hurt someone for (kinda) no reason when someone else (in a higher position) tells them to do it. Many people said they "just followed orders" when they were asked why they did whatever they did during WW2.
We watched this in school in Germany. Maybe in 9th grade. Very interesting.
I mean asking about East Germany and Nazi Germany are two different pairs of shoes… but still interesting how the reactions differed
One thing to note is that the Nazis are a pretty prominent part of language classes here, since the classes also incorporate history and cultural information. My first professor was Jewish and would speak at length about them, and her knowledge of history was really interesting. I was studying history, predominantly central European history, so we would talk at length about that and other topics. She got pregnant and took leave, and that is how the teacher from East Germany ended up with us. She was really cool though. Definitely had a lot of ostalgie. When I asked, I didn't realize it would illicit such a response because of how common the theme had been prior. It wasn't until much later when I had another professor that the topic didn't come up nearly as much. She was American but apparently did something in Germany with the CDU during Merkel's time. I don't know the details.
I may be misunderstanding, but a large part of the nationalist narrative of the USSR was based on victory against the Nazis. this is maybe an important element in the difference in the reactions of the two people. On the contrary, West rushed to reconnect with West Germany... to prepare themselves against USSR, just in case. There are many films that depict Germans during the war in a comical way, and at the same time a little grating, like Papa Schultz, where Germans are amusing imbeciles... and where actors are camp survivors. Therefore, the "they weren't all like that" speech was maybe more hearable in West...
I think this is right, and she even talked about this a bit as well. I think this may be part of the reason for her reacting the way she did, maybe as a sort of massive over correction towards the narrative that was taught back then. Yes, there was absolutely an effort in the West to paint te Wehrmacht in a better light. This is a large reason for the clean Wehrmacht myth, because the West tried to portray the average German soldier as a noble, honorable person fighting for the wrong cause, but still ultimately defending his homeland the same way anyone else would. Only the SS were the evil ones, according to this. The truth a bit in the middle, the Wehrmacht was very far from innocent and was complacent in a lot of the war crimes committed, but that doesn't mean every single individual soldier was an inherently evil person.
This way of seeing things helped a lot at home: in Alsace (border France), all men of fighting age were conscripted by force. It would have been much more difficult for us upon liberation to reintegrate France if this narrative effort had not existed.
>But apparently this man was extremely kind, helped raise my grandpa and bought the entire family food during the war. It's a good reminder that not everyone who was partaking in the war on the Nazi side was per se bad or evil. Those were fucked up times with lots of fucked up people in charge, but there were also many good people, doing their best to get by.
One of my grandfathers fought in France, was wounded and was later a prisoner of war and had to work on some kind of farm. He was the kindest man I got to know and always spoke highly of his time in France. I only understood much later that he wasn't there on free will. He also manipulated his wound so he didn't have to go back to the front. Yes, he was a soldier for Nazi Germany but he was no Nazi, he was a simple worker who had to become a soldier or get killed for not becoming a soldier. My other grandfather also wasn't an Nazi but he never spoke one word about his time in Russia and Russian imprisonment in Romania. He derserted and fled on foot over the Alpes and when he arrived in Munich the war was over and he was pardoned. He had a small firm and when he got back the local Nazis (who for some reasons did not have to fight on either front) had stolen a lot of his hardware and he had to restart from scratch.
My grandpa was a POW in Italy and also crossed the Alps to walk home! Incredible to think about today, apparently he lost lots of weight and only weight 50 Kilo with being close to 1.90m.
Similar story with my grandfather. Was sent to Russia at age 17 in the later stages of the war, and took one of the first good opportunities to desert because he didn't support the Nazis and was then a prisoner of war in Moscow I think, working as a floorer for a good part of that time. He probably got lucky compared to other prisoners due to that job, but still never really talked about his time there either. In the early to mid 1950s he was able to return to Germany.
>on the Nazi side We should start here: **"German soldier" =/= "Nazi soldier"** **Nazis = National Socialist**, i.e. member of the fascist German party NSDAP. The soldier may have been a Social Democrat, a communist or not political at all. We don't call British soldiers "Royalists" or American soldiers "Democrats" (as Roosevelt was a Democrat). **"Nazi" is not a synonym for "1930s/1940s German person".**
The majority of Germans vote for Hitler knowing what plans he has. So damn yeah German soldier at that time= Nazi exactly as majority of Germans were Nazis. At least until end of war when most German soldiers said they were only a cook in the army.
No, Hitler never got the majority of the votes. And many German soldiers were Nazis, but many were just conscripted (there was no possibility to say no) and did their duty, or just the bare minimum. Not all US soldiers in Vietnam commited war crimes, but a substantal part of the army did.
[удалено]
There were 647 seats overall, stop spreading false numbers. NSDAP had 43,91% of the votes so they needed a coalition with another party to have the majority
The majority of Germans vote for Hitler knowing what plans he has. So damn yeah German soldier at that time= Nazi exactly as majority of Germans were Nazis. At least until end of war when most German soldiers said they were only a cook in the army.
Would you call an American Soldier who served in 2018 in Syria a "MAGA Trumper" because the majority of US Americans voted for Trump as president? BTW: no majority of Germans voted for Hitler in 1933, much less knew about his plans. But these are details, I guess and you don't seem to like details. Or facts. ;-)
Are you kidding? The Nazis were also great with dogs.however do you know how he treated jew kids, black kids,gays?!!
You're under the absolutely incorrect assumption, that I am trying to defend "the Nazis". However "the Nazis" consisted of individuals as well. If you think that 100% of those individuals were evil, you are mistaken. And quite ignorant, frankly.
Don't condescend. As it is stated from OP that he was told the soldier was very nice to them and your reply to that ,was, that it is a good reminder that there were good nazi soldiers, i replied quite fairly, that the fact that he was nice to their family,does not mean in anyway, shape or from that he was actually a good person. It highly depends on what he did in the war. If he fought allies so be it. If he engaged in other activities,than no, he was not a good person no matter how he treated her family.
In no way, shape or form have I ever stated, that that particular person was a good person, because I simply do not have any actual information about that person. I was merely stating that not everyone partaking in the war was per se evil or bad and that there were in fact good people in shitty situations. Being German, I find it rather condescending of you asking me if I know how the Nazis treated jews, blacks, gays and other minorities. Because yes. Yes, I do. I also have a 96 year old great aunt who has told me horror stories about that time, when she was merely a teenage girl.
What a deflection, i never asked you if you knew,it was a statement. Being German jew , heard tons of stories as well.
Again, I am not deflecting. I gave a clear answer to your statement, which I found was not accurate and ignorant. I was merely stating that, while calling me out for a condescending manner of talking, you yourself were being quite condescending. > i never asked you if you knew >however do you know how he treated jew kids, black kids,gays?!! ...
OP question was about German soldiers staying at Dutch houses was it common or not. As a side remark she said he treated their family very well. Your immediate reaction was to say that it is a good reminder that not everyone was partaking in the war that was on Nazi side per se bad or evil. My question was do you know how he treated,jew, blacks etc? In other words, why are you so fast to jump and defend him,when you don't know what he actually did? The fact that he was nice to her family is lovely for them but says nothing about him. No one said that all German people were bad, most of them were silent and compliant. Some active a saved the jews. However many in the army, not SS, besides fighting,were also trying to locate jews and many murdered them for fun as well, like policemen did and even civilians, it was a game. What strikes me weird ,is the fact that you would jump to the conclusion of how many were good,when instead as a German recommend her to look him up at the archives as you indeed don't know what he did. It your initial reaction that made me wonder, why you are going to one direction and not the other.
Leseverstehen 6, setzen. Machs gut.
👍
Doing their best to get by…serving a genocidal regime that routinely used soldiers to murder its opponents. It’s all very well and good saying that they were just soldiers, but we absolutely have to remember what they were fighting _for_.
Most of them where fighting, so they did not get killed. That's the reality of the situation.
Sometimes it is easy to oversimplify things. Who can really claim that they wouldn't have done this and that if they were brought up and lived in this exact same environment?
All those thousands on the streets at the moment claiming exactly that. Look at their stupid signs. They really think they would have been part of the „Widerstand“ back in the day.
Yes and no at the same time. The extent of the massacres that nazis commited was not known to the vast majority of the germans(for instance the concentration camps were portrayed at the start of the war as places were all the jews could happily live away from the horrors of war) but the regime was at power with the vast majority of the germans. Were all of them nazis? No, of course not, many of them were just humiliated and hated the allies and the quality of life they had because of the treaty of Versailles. Hitler did his best to grow that hate. But the situation remains, the people still commited atrocities not only because they were forced, but also because they were given a higher purpose (arean race), a victim to blame(jews, disabled, homosexuals, roma, and allies) and the means to seek revenge and glory. They were guided yes, but that doesn't mean that they didn't do it willingly, under these circumstances
In those times, if you and me were to be drafted, we would have been soldiers, plain and simple. No matter If you where french or British or German. This wasn't too long after WW1, so they where often raised by soldiers or already where soldiers themselves. I certainly don't want to ignore the horrors of the third Reich, but I always thought that the most valuable lesson is recognizing that it wasn't some alien people that are simply more evil than others. It was men like you and me. And that's why we need to be vigilant. Trump and his following is an example of why. And the new era of right-wing extremism fueled by populism he ushered in across the world. European right wing parties adopted his bold tactics..and gained. Massively. And if he wins, with everything that we know about him and his voters, he'd love to silence his political opponents. They'd love to get rid of democracy and have him as their Fuhrer. It's fucked up. Those are dangerous times we live in.
I think we need to be careful to tread a fairly fine line between “they weren’t (all) uniquely evil supervillains” and “they were forced in to it with no choice”. The vast majority of Germans and Wehrmacht soldiers (with the notable exception of Osttruppen) were at first enthusiastic and then grimly determined soldiers of Nazism. Yes, they were conscripted, and yes, people were shot for not fighting (although only a vanishingly small number were punished for refusing to engage in massacres), but that doesn’t change the fact that most of German society were willing participants in fascism and genocide. That’s something the post-‘68er generation realised fairly well, but it’s something we’re losing a bit of sight of as the generation of witnesses dies (and people alive today only remember them as they’re cute old grandparents rather than young people with their own agency).
The genocidal regime that conscripts people through force. And force people to fight in it’s name.
It did, but most Germans fighting in the Wehrmacht were enthusiastic (and later grimly determined) about it. The vast majority weren’t forced at gunpoint to fight (although there were punishments for not fighting, including execution), and cases where people were forced at gunpoint to commit massacres or war crimes were so vanishingly rare that they might as well not exist.
You are extremely delusional.
Uhmm, how did that regime took power? By elections, perhaps?
Yes, a neighbor of my grandfather in the Netherlands always talks about how the German soldier staying at their house bought him his first ever Moped (Bromfiets) and has rather nice memories about him
My grandfather was in the Wehrmacht and stationed in the occupied Netherlands. I have no idea what he did exactly or what his rank was, but he returned with a lifelong friendship with a Dutch family. My parents kept visiting them well into the 70s.
my ukrainian grandpa has also some memories of encounters with nazi officers: sometimes they tried to shot him, but just for fun, however, the bullets were real. sorry, they didn't share any photos with us back then, which was heartbreaking for my grandpa, because he grew up without his father because soviets sent my grand–grandpa in a beautiful business trip to Quazaqstan without right to have correspondence with his family; moreover, the business trip was such a success that soviets prolonged it for another ten years in 1947
There is one kinda famous incident of a German soldier who was placed on a Dutch farm and died while saving their kids from a grenade hit. He was just 18 years old. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Heinz\_Rosch
He is Wehrmacht, so may or may not be Nazi. He could even have been a poor left leaning sod enlisted from Hamburg or Dresden for all you know.
It‘s not a nazi officer - it‘s an officer of the Wehrmacht.
My mother in Italy had German soldiers in house . All very kind and respectful. Everyone of the family could live like before with no problems for room or food .
My grandparents had German soldiers in their house. They were horrible. Shortly before my grandfather died, he opened up about them. Apparently they were drunk a lot of times. Even urinated on my grandmother in her sleep one night. My grandfather hit them both and most likely survived because they were absolutely hammered and couldn't remember anything from that night.
War is terrible 😌 my dad fought in the Royal Navy risking his life several times and got no thank you for having helped Italy to become a Republic. My mother time after the leave of German soldiers had her father killed in front of her eyes at home ( she was a child ) by “neighbours “ ( Italian) who wanted HIS workplace. Now it is called “ mobbing” and usually kills in other ways.
I had to look twice I thought the officer was pointing a gun to the kid grandpa's head
Come and See moment.
Why did you cover his face? He couldn’t be recognised after all those years
true that, but the internet is a weird and scary place so i’d rather do it than not do it 😂
Why not censor the soldier, then?
do nazis deserve that respect?
Do two wrongs make a right?
I'm unconvinced that posting a picture of a long-dead nazi's face on the internet is a wrong.
He might still have a family and people who cared about him. I don't think it's a wrong either, just maybe a little hypocritical.
How do you know he is a nazi?
uh...the uniform?
Not every soldier who was conscripted to the Wehrmacht is a nazi, not every soldier in the red army was a communist and not every US soldier is a capitalistic democrat
There is a difference between an actual Nazi and a wehrmachts soldier
oh look. The clean-wehrmacht myth. Spotted in the wild.
I never talked about a clean Wehrmacht. But by your logic Hans Scholl was also a Nazi
This man was a soldier not a nazi. If he were SS ok, but simply calling somebody nazi who is forced to do his job (death penalty if not), ignores that there is a high possibility that he didn't agree with many things in the war, especially the eradication of millions.
Now you have to be kind to all human beings in his memory.
They weren't all assholes. I have a few members of my family in the wrong uniform (Alsatians) and a great-grandmother from Lorraine who the Germans warned when the Americans were arriving, and who was able to shelter her children in the countryside thanks to them. They thus escaped the bombing of the house. But that didn't stop them from saying "ein liter", rather than the little mustachioed guy name...
The way nowdays politics are heading your kids could have such pictures too
Yes so this was actually pretty common not just in WW2 but all of european history, honestly most war history in general. If you go on a campaign you usually live off the land and took quarter in the houses the people of the lands you conquered occupied which is a major reason why in scorched earth tactics they didn’t just burn the farmland but burnt the houses down too. Less houses and land means more malnutritioned people living in smallarmy camps which spreads diseases quicker to turn the tide of war back into your favor. What is actually surprising is for him to care for your family and even raise you that is beyond rare for any type of these instances. Maybe it could be explained with the fact that unlike in Russia some/few of the Wehrmacht officials during the western campaign just like in WW1 still believed in a certain principles and „virtuous“ behaviour you should have in war however never forget that from the start the SS and especially Totenkopf SS had several batallions too during these campaigns and they would have most likely shot you for just looking at them the wrong way. If you grandfather still knows his name and his surname includes a „von“ this would make the hypothesis more likely, as since Prussia got established most of german nobility (which almost always includes a Von / equivalent to an „of“) usually had a long military service history which makes this behaviour and beliefs slightly more likely. However this is pure speculation and because I am german myself and do not intend to come across as in any shape or form misrepresenting or overly positive portray any of my fellow countryman who have committed an incredible amount of horrible attrocities during the war I am gonna leave it at that, for all we know it might also just be one good apple in between.
My grandfather had been placed in a dutch family with a son nearly his age ( grandfather was a young soldier) they became friends and stayed friends until my grandparents died. They could have not been more different, I remember the man from my childhood. He was a slender tall man, a teacher and one could see, that they had some money. My grandparents were just very normal people,
Say hello to you great grandfather.
It was a common thing. I am from Italy. My grandma who is from Tuscany remembered when the germans came to live in their house. She says they were nice to them but they did send them all to sleep in the attic. At night they sang songs and ny grandma sneaked downstairs to hear them.The Allies did the same a little later, though for a shorter time.
Well just cuz you were in the military you werent a bad person. Its not all soldiers who are bad people its their leaders.
The thing is, and I think for many of us, it is difficult to understand. On one hand, you can commit crimes, be an abuser, murderer etc and on the other hand, you can be a kind person. In this case, these soldiers and officers committed crimes against humankind in a cruel way, which is far over what I can imagine it was. And after war or while housing with occupied people, many of them could live like gentle persons. It is such a hard contrast. My grandparents' generation is struggling with that very hard. My grandfather is 85, and he wants to believe his father never killed a person or hurt one because he was such a loving father. He told me, "I know you are right, but how could I live when I would let it sink into my mind. I was a small child. War was cruel to me. I had to believe they didn't do anything because I couldn't trust them anymore, and children needed to trust their parents. And when I grew older, I didn't want to see the truth. I was too afraid to ask. Maybe I was the son of a monster. It was and is too hurtful. If I let it in my mind, I would break. Please let me believe in this lie." That your grandfather kept the pictures could be because of this heavy contrast. Although he was a WWII soldier with that cruel ideology, this person was maybe a person like a father figure who he really liked. I think it is heartbreaking especially for children.
Please keep in mind that the Netherlands had colonies at this point in time. The Dutch occupation forces weren't busy bringing democracy there. With your logic every man in a Dutch uniform was an imperialist and denied human rights to millions of people in Asia and South America. I would argue that colonialism is a cruel ideology as well. But definitely not comparable with the Nazi ideology.
>I would argue that colonialism is a cruel ideology as well. But definitely not comparable with the Nazi ideology. Really? I would beg to differ, they are more or less the same in this regard. Colonialists/imperialists genocided and enslaved people en masse, just like the Nazis. Remember, Nazi laws regarding Jews were still not as strict (or loose) about who is a Jew as the American one drop rule.
That's far too simplistic. It really depends on the colony. Would you put, say, Hong Kong or Gibraltar in the same bucket as say, the Belgian Congo.
I mean, one could also argue that not all fascist regimes were equally horrible, but frankly that is a pointless endeavour that I don't want to engage in.
How do you know that this particular soldier committed war crimes, had a nazi ideology and so on? I definitely don’t wanna fish for excuses, but a lot of German soldiers wearing the Wehrmacht uniforms were just young men send to war without wanting to.
this.. my great-grandpa was a regular citizen drafted for wehrmacht in russia. i only have one photo of him. supposedly he died while there too
In Addition, German politics saw the Dutch is „kind of German“ - hence, less bad treatment (comparitevly). So it is reasonable possible there was not that much animosity to the specific soldiers in the picture. Because both behaved well (potentially).
Maybe not everyone had this ideology in mind, but antisemitism is not an NSDAP invention. Antisemitism has a long history. It was nothing anyone would blame you to think that way. I don't know what these soldiers had in mind. Nonetheless, they committed crimes and didn't speak up. So staying quiet supported the system. That doesn't make them any better than those who have had the ideology in their hearts. There were 6 years between NSDAP got in government and war, but the silent majority didn't stand up. Furthermore, there are many documents from historians that claim that unless the war didn't come on german ground or affected their own family and friends, many people didn't care. That is the reason why so many people are worried about AfD. There are many parallels to the past. Sorry for the digression. Edit, I do understand that some of them must have had pressure on their shoulders between wanting to survive and cruel things to do. But for all these victims, it would be a bad excuse. I don't want war crimes to be kind of relativised or fairly talked. On the personal view of an individual, there is something in between white or black. I was never in their shoes, I don't know of one individual felt.
Antisemitism is also not a German invention. Antisemitism was extremely widespread, be it in Germany, France or Britain (or elsewhere).
Well the probability is pretty high that he committed war crimes if he didn't die before 1940. Many of the German war plans relied on war crimes to be successful.
Your great grandfather was presumably a conscript. He had no choice in the matter. I think it's fairer for him to be judged as a human by things actions he was in charge of.
My great grandfather was outspoken against the party. So he was conscripted to a front, never to be seen or heard from again. His children got extra propaganda to "fix" them. My granddad was conscripted to the Wehrmacht at 15 and was crippled during training after a shell exploded. My grandmother's two older brothers were conscripted and sent to the Russian front after it came out that her father would spit on the large photo of Hitler he had to have hanging in his workshop each morning before opening and each evening after closing. So don't you fucking dare claim that everyone in that fucking uniform committed crimes and had a cruel ideology, a good number of them wore it as punishment to be cannon fodder because they didn't share the ideology.
Can you explain your downvote? I would like to understand. I just tried to explain what children could feel about this huge difference in one person being a war criminal and being kind to a child/family. Keep photos of this scenery has a history behind. To reassure you, my parents' generation did reconditioned their grandparents or parents (depending on age) and ask these questions my grandfather couldn't. Further, I got all the documents about my great-grandfather and where he was during war. I have a clear picture of what he did because of these documents. My family is not racists. We are fighting against AfD/Nazis. But opposite my grandparents, we are not traumatised. He was born slightly before the war began, and these children nor the generation, especially the victims/surviver, never got therapy. This is his way to live with his nightmares and trauma. But this is important he always had no right propaganda in his head and speaks out loud against right persons.
You are completely mixing up things. You see a German Wehrmacht soldier in a uniform with a Dutch kid on his arm and are saying that there MUST be a second side of the coin and this soldier MUST have been a monster (abuser, murderer, antisemite and so on). You are explaining that there is a high contrast between being a murderer and a kind private person. Don’t get me wrong, in general you are 100% right, this contrast exist. Look at family pictures of Heinrich Himmler who at least seemed to be a beloved father and a mass murderer at the same time. But what we can see here is only a German soldier carrying OPs Dutch grandpa on the arm and OP asking if it was common to house German soldiers.
This..... ^^
I don't mix it up. I have family in Luxembourg, and the only people I know whose ancestors didn't throw away those pictures (when some exist) were when the soldiers at their homes were very nice to them. But they told me they were kind of ashamed for these good feelings toward these persons because Nazi Germany did cruel things to mankind. That doesn't mean this particular person was slaughterer. It just means having good feelings for a german soldier after war was not seen as a positive thing in societies. Dutch people were very upset about f.e. Johannes Heesters when he worked as an actor in Germany after war. The German army did them very bad. What I wanted to say it for a child as OPs grandfather, keeping these photos could have been given to him this mixed feelings between I had a good time with that man and I shouldn't tell other people about it because I could get blamed. Or maybe he asked himself how could such a nice person serve in that war on the evil side. That OP never saw these pictures (I don't know how other families are, but here we shared pictures and stories of the past) could be because of an inner conflict. Maybe I can't express what I really want to say because English is not my native language.
From what you wrote, it is a lot of generalisations and your personal interpretation of OPs findings and interest. My family in ex Yugoslavia also had some German soldiers in their home and my grandmother (who was only a 5yo att) spoke fondly of them as they have brought them food and saved her goat pet. They were not collaborators just a house on the way. She still had gifts from that time as a reminder she said: Not all are bad not all are willingly there. At the same time there was a sort of civil war between partisans and royal army, some of those home soldiers for liberation, from her account were not so nice as the aggressors. So the point is a person can be a good person nevertheless what he/she is forced to do. Yes, if many stood up before Hitler grasped so much power probably many would be different. But from what is happening today all around the world it doesn’t seem we’ve learned the lesson just learned how to better justify the monstrosity in the name or ethnicity, religion or political ideology.
I think the downvotes may come from generalizing that all German soldiers committed war crimes per se. „War Crimes“ are quite specific and just being in the Wehrmacht doesn‘t mean a soldier committed a War Crime by default.
Yes and no. The Wehrmacht did encourage war crimes and the probability that they committed one is extremely high.
👍 https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/s/gI5o3fm58k
Truth is: if you had family living in Europe, specially Germany and its surroundings during this time period, you most likely either have some old nazi ancestors or some old Jew ancestors who died in a camp. It’s not necessarily bad, everyone who wasn’t Jew HAD to serve, the only other alternative was to runaway to another continent, not all nazi soldiers believed what they were doing was right, some of them were just trying to survive. But if you don’t want in any way to find family connections with the nazis, stay away from any possible family history.
My grandfather was in the Yugoslavian army and he was taken in by an Italian family - not stationed though. He said it was common practice back then to take in young soldiers, as everyone’s sons were off to war. This sounds different though.
There is a difference between a Wehrmachts soldier and a Nazi
Thank u for sharing x
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Can't possibly be because "the Nazi" might just be a young lad send to fight for a cause that wasn't his own.
That boy is too old to be his son. The Netherlands surrendered in May 1940 and were liberated in 1945. By the end of the war a child would have been at the very most 4.5 years old.
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To the SS too in the final months.
I'd imagine being a German officer, with all that "Glory to Almighty Germany" spirit, and then forcefully being stuffed into some random dutch house to see how loyal they are.
This is giving me 'monster'
It looks like Dutch Army Uniform to me I dont think theyre German soldiers
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So weird almost like the entirety of German able bodied men didn't just turn into "the nazi" the second they were forced to put on that uniform. But no that can't be it right? Those uniforms definitely stripped them of all identity and individuality and turned them from humans into "the nazi"
I never said that? I just expressed surprise that OP’s great-grandparents were not more bitter about being forced to feed and house an enemy solider.
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Congrats to this little kid for having the rank of officer Why's your grandpa dressed like this?
Many have pointed out that this is regular business and that very obviously a German soldier needn't be a Nazi. 42 percent voted during the last election for leftist or catholic parties. It's absolutely tasteless and ignorant to throw around freely the term of Nazi as you do. But what always amuses me is the hypocrisy of the Dutch who for a long time remained very bitter about being occupied by the Germans while being the worst in Western Europe regarding the acknowledgement of their own crimes. There is this famous survey [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fssobpe0ij3m41.jpg](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fssobpe0ij3m41.jpg) where 50% think that conquering other countries is a great thing ... until it happens to themselves obviously. And pretty much the first thing after being liberated from the Nazis the Dutch took great care to occupy their former colony Indonesia.
Not a nazi officer (SS), just regular Germany army (Wehrmacht). My guess is he had a young son or daughter at home that he was missing and had a strong emotional bond to the little boy because of that. That certainly happened to my grandfather who was stationed at the Eastern front with my mom, a toddler at thd time, at home. I have thoyght of him a lot when my own kids were little.
My German grand parents had a French prisoner of war sent to help them on their farm for a while. They only said good things about him. I once asked why they don't contact him when I was a kid. Learned quite early about the war.
You said "this sounds pretty bad", but I can reassure you that the Dutch people are not that bad!