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Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 1.Β
Posted by Elkstone (U3836042) on Saturday, 5th November 2011
I have seen on many documentaries how historians showed they carried on fighting with little realistic chance of winning, especially post stalingrad.
Could it be described as showing perfect discipline to the bitter end? The Japanese units were also instilled with a 'never surrender' mentality. Both armies were accused of war crimes.
Question I wanted to ask, would the British or US forces act the same under similar situations, or they had never been placed in anything similar under tyrannical leaders? Or would the Wars with the Native Americans/my lai or some of the excesses of the East India Company or Amritsar be the closest?Link to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 2
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Sunday, 6th November 2011
Elkstone,
difficult question. For instance if you compare with a Kadhafi soldier in Syrte at the end?
And both on the Russian side and the German side there were dictatorships with a backing of some fanatic core. And everybody knew that they didn't hesitate to murder the soldiers if they didn't show enough zeal. Perhaps more in the Soviet army than in the German one? And there was also the indoctrination, here perhaps more with the Germans than with the Russians? While the Russians were more patriotic than the Germans? Suvorovetz?
There were two Germans billeted in my mother's house. One fanatic and one farmer from the East of Germany, who was against all the war fuss. But how they would behave when encircled in a Russian area...?
In Belgium there hasn't been real war as in Russia (aside perhaps of the Ardennes offensive (the battle of the Bulge?)? If I recall it well in Norway there were whole army groups, who surrendered without any shot. But at the other side you had the stiff resistance in Holland during the "hungerwinter". And also in a wood near Aachen if I remember it well, fighting on their own soil. I read it in an American war book and saw it also in an American series, which I commented overhere.
Kind regards,
Paul.Link to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 3
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Sunday, 6th November 2011
Addendum to previous message.
About the wood near Aachen in the American series I mentioned:
Regards, Paul.Link to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 4
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Monday, 7th November 2011
Certainly not perfect discipline. In the German army, the last phase of the war was characterized by increasingly brutal repression and a large number of summary executions of soldiers who had deserted, a phenomenon that nevertheless continued to grow. (The breakdown of formal army structures in the last months made it fairly easy to desert, if only they dared to.) The regime reacted harshly against any sign of "defeatism". By Nazi law, Hitler had personal power over life and death of every German, and families could be held collectively responsible for the activities of a single member. Those were powerful deterrents, and there were a number of high-profile victims of it.
The willingness of soldiers to fight also depended a lot on the options available to them. On the Western front, the Allies made a point of treating PoWs well and advertising it. Allied air forces dropped an enormous number of "safe conduct tickets" (Passierscheine) to "help" German soldiers surrender, and many of them did. On the Eastern front however, being captured by the Red Army was nearly equivalent to a death sentence (as it was for Soviet soldiers captured by the Germans) and soldiers had little choice except to hang together and continue fighting. The treatment of German civilians by the Red Army was another motive to fight on regardless.
Ideology certainly was a factor for some. The soldiers of 1945 had been subjects of the Nazi regime since 1933, which for most meant that they had grown up in a climate of steady, quasi-religious indoctrination. While some had never had much faith in the regime and others had lost it, there still was a fanatical core of men and boys devoted to Hitler. War crimes had something to do with it: The belief, as Goebbels put it, that they had "burnt their bridges behind them" in collective guilt, and would either have to be victorious or accept to be treated as criminals.
Finally, while the propaganda increasingly rang hollow, there remained to be a possibility, however remote, for the hardcore fanatics to believe that the war was not yet lost. Even after the hope offered by the V-weapon propaganda had evaporated, there were Germans -- some surprisingly high in rank -- who believed the British and Americans would soon see their error, and ally with the Germans against Bolshevism. Clinging to such straws enabled men to continue to fight.Link to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 5
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 7th November 2011
Back in the late 1860's Matthew Arnold complained about an "Anglo-Saxon contagion" which seemed to be linked to the new militarism (American Civil War, Napoleon III, and Bismarck's wars) and the conflicts with tribal warrior societies as "the West" continued to expand..
This led to a rediscovery of the old Teutonic virtues of the Anglo-Saxons and that story in the AS Chronicle when one of the AS peoples meeting another on the "place of slaughter" fought to the death of the last man because their leader/king was dead.
At one point their enemies held back and urged them to stop fighting with their honour fully intact. They would attest to all that they had fought magnificently. But their cause was lost with the death of their leader. They replied that, therefore their honour demanded that they too should die on the battlefield, or kill all of their enemies. So they fought on.
In the education of the "Lost Generation" who leapt to "do their duty" in 1914 such concepts of military valour and the idea of war as the highest expression of manly virtues had been deeply ingrained, and Winston Churchill (the product of that period when British culture was heavily Germanised) drew upon that English/Teutonic tradition of the "last ditch stand".
It had also been deeply ingrained within Prussian militarism. But interestingly Joseph Goebbels- who presumably had escaped the military because of his physical disability- while being prepared to contemplate the murder of his own children and a suicide pact with his wife as a fitting and "heroic" end to their own drama- spent a massive amount of money and men in the last stages of the war in a new Nazi propaganda film entitled "Kolmar" (?). The huge battle scenes seem to have been a good excuse to withdraw units from the Eastern Front, though the film was all about the heroism of the town of Kolmar during that "exemplary" period of Frederick the Great of Prussia when the soldiers had indeed fought to the death.
Nevertheless not everyone in Germany was a fanatic. Recently over in France I watched the six episodes of a documentary series about "The Fighters in the Shadows" - the resistance all across Europe. One French man who had a most eventful war described how he had managed to get away from his concentration camp status on one of those relocation trecks in the final months. He had headed to where he hoped to find some Allies, and fell in with some Yanks. He asked if he could join them and do a bit of conventional fighting, having spent part of the war in London working in the HQ of De Gaulle. When they realized that he was multilingual they gave him a US uniform and he rode with them.
One morning after a good sleep in a village, he found that the village had been re-taken by the Germans and there was no sign of the Yanks. So he walked straight up to the SS officer in charge of the unit and explained his situation. The German said that it was well known that they took no prisoners. To which he replied that it was a story that had been greatly exaggerated, and that really the war was as good as lost. So he suggested that the officer should allow him to leave along with some German prisoners to take to the Allies, who would treat them as POW's.
Still as an old man his sense of humour was very evident, and he described the scene as this lone- and unarmed French man headed off with 14 German "prisoners" to find the Yanks. Which he did.
After that he decided that perhaps he might actually go home and join in the task of recreating France.
Perhaps I might also mention the German soldier who became ashamed while occupying Paris at the implementation of the Final Solution. Through his French hairdresser he made contact with the Resistance and secretly helped them, at one point giving them his service revolver. Much later on he was pleased to learn that it was this weapon that had been used to carry out an important assassination. And when the Resistance rose up in Paris to drive the Germans out he cycled through the deserted streets and was relieved to find his hairdresser still in business. He burned his German uniform and joined the Resistance.
CassLink to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 6
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Monday, 7th November 2011
Hi, Paul And there was also the indoctrination, here perhaps more with the Germans than with the Russians? While the Russians were more patriotic than the Germans? Suvorovetz?Β I've been looking for some oldies here. I'd say that this post addresses some of these issues:
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Message 7
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 7th November 2011
Suvorovetz,
thank you very much for this link, which points exactly to what I wanted to say.
Kind regards, Paul.Link to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 8
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 7th November 2011
Mutatis Mutandis,
thank you very much for this great message, which explains that much better all the points that I wanted to highlight. And in such an excellent and logical style. Bit jealous of yours...
Kind regards and with esteem, Paul.Link to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 9
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Monday, 7th November 2011
Cass,
"It had also been deeply ingrained within Prussian militarism. But interestingly Joseph Goebbels- who presumably had escaped the military because of his physical disability- while being prepared to contemplate the murder of his own children and a suicide pact with his wife as a fitting and "heroic" end to their own drama- spent a massive amount of money and men in the last stages of the war in a new Nazi propaganda film entitled "Kolmar" (?). The huge battle scenes seem to have been a good excuse to withdraw units from the Eastern Front, though the film was all about the heroism of the town of Kolmar during that "exemplary" period of Frederick the Great of Prussia when the soldiers had indeed fought to the death."
The whole story, completely right. I saw it in a documentary. And it was "Kolberg" Cass.
Cheers, Paul.Link to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 10
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 7th November 2011
Paul
Thanks for the correction.
CassLink to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 11
Posted by RusEvo (U2126548) on Monday, 7th November 2011
Does anyone know how much of a motivation there was in trying to hold the Russians back for as long as possible from reaching their families back home (having some idea of what would happen when they arrived)?
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Message 12
Posted by suvorovetz (U12273591) on Monday, 7th November 2011
Does anyone know how much of a motivation there was in trying to hold the Russians back for as long as possible from reaching their families back home (having some idea of what would happen when they arrived)?Β I'm not entirely sure that I understand the question, but (just a hunch) I believe that a chapter from Mark Solonin's book June 22 (The Cask and the Hoops) speaks to it - and if not, my apologies:
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Message 13
Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Monday, 7th November 2011
cass
At Great Cost to Local Innocent Men and Boys?
Not knowing if ex- British Agents dropped onto enemy occupied countries give interviews of their wartime activities on British TV so as the British could be informed, but seems citizens in German occupied countries were reluctant to carry out assassinations, and or Destroying Bridges etc. because of high cost in innocent lives.
That German could have had the last laugh by causing more French deaths that perhaps he could have in combat, without risk to his own personal safety.
Heard of Lidice?Link to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 14
Posted by rhmnney (U14528380) on Monday, 7th November 2011
cass I quoted part of your message and used it as a heading to my post ,but it was delated, referred to the revolver used in an assassination.
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Message 15
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 7th November 2011
RusEvo
I am inclined to think that given the extent of the Eastern Front. not squeezed to the North by a mountain range like the Alps, it must have been difficult if not impossible for German soldiers to conceive any kind of strategy that could be related to their homes, which were scattered around Hitler's "greater Germany" from the Sudetenland to Schleswig-Holstein.
It must have been demoralising to fight under Hitler as a Supreme Commander who had refused to entertain the basic military strategy of tactical withdrawal for example at Stalingrad.. One has to wonder whether the Germans had any contingency planning for a withdrawal to a "last ditch". It seems likely that anyone found planning such things at a time when planning would have been possible and meaningful would not have lasted long. Treason and defeatism.
What coordinated activity there was often seems to have been localised and obsessed with the Final Solution. If the Nazis were to die they would make sure that they took the Jews with them and then (they seemed to have believed) eventually History would justify them as they would have paid the ultimate price for saving Humankind.
So we have the halt in the Russian advance while the Germans put down the Warsaw uprising and razed the city to the ground, and the evacuation of the Extermination and Concentration Camps that might have been liberated by the Soviet advance.
I was reminded by a recent French TV documentaty on Louis Ferdinand Celine of his novel "Nord" which I read a few years ago.. As an anti-semitic pamphleteer, and on "the list" as collaborator, Celine went to Germany along with other French collaborators in the Autumn of 1944. And this novel is based upon his experiences within Germany. An utter shambles. Not least because Germany was awash with "aliens"- those like Celine considered to be on the German side, and also loads of units of foreign workers recruited by various means to keep the Reich going.
As far as "families back home" are concerned, you must remember that there were more immediate problems than the eventual probability of Soviet retribution- the tithe of rape inflicted. The Western Allies were carpet bombing German towns and cities, and in addition to the physical threats to life and limb there were huge challenges of getting the means to stay alive.
But when it came to last-ditch fighting, especially Berlin, I believe that the situation mirrored Stalingrad with the Soviets (having been given the honour of finishing off the Nazis) losing vast numbers of men as the city had to be conquered street by street.
CassLink to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 16
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 7th November 2011
rhmnney
I replied to you at some length but perhaps I pressed a wrong button..and it has all gone.
I have commented before on the MB that people nowadays just assume that war is a matter of mass killing- but it is much more than that.
Much of the most important work done by those Resisters was resisting the German "programmes for Europe"-- though a key moment was when Stalin, while calling on the Russian people to fight for "Mother Russia" called on all European Communist Party members (by definition activists) to do what they could to damage the German war effort.
As it happened the first of the six programmes that I saw was the third that dealt with the Final Solution. A Danish man explained how in one week-end rich Danes had given him the funds necessary to finance the exodus of the Danish Jews to neutral Switzerland. Such organization was necessary. Some Jews hired a fisherman to take them to Sweden. He took their money and drowned them at sea. The Danish resistance tried him and executed him for his mass murder.
Another killing was by a couple of teenage Dutch "girls", daugheters of a Communist mother, who were given the task of killing a Protestant Priest who was informing on Dutch Jews to the Germans. Being the Netherlands they carried out the "hit" by bicycle.
A Belgian Primary School teacher gave up her teaching in order to work full-time saving 20,000 Jewish children who all needed to be placed and maintained in save houses- often for a fee. That meant fund-raising and elaborate record keeping. Others provided safe-houses and escorts for Allied pilots who needed to be repatriated in order to fight again. One woman finally gave in to complaints about the pilots having to travel by Third Class rail, and described going First Class with two Americans, sharing a compartment as far as Paris with an immaculately cultured German officer. Others were involved in the fight for the morale that involved printing news obtained from the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ, and distributing pamphlets over the occupied zone, usuallu by young women on bicycles.
But increasingly the Resistance was being coordinated and helped from London. And one of the Greek Resisters took part in the first operation by the Special Forces Executive. As a now united Greek mountain resistance force they provided the back-up support for a British project to blow up a vital railway viaduct that carried all of the German munitions and supplies heading for Africa. They collected the supplies dropped by the British along with the two skilled operatives, one from New Zealand. The Greeks provided the mules and other muscles, plus the military cover that allowed the British to mine the viaduct and blow it up successfully.
So much of the violence was calculated on a "cost-benefit analysis"..
But the situation on the Eastern Front was different. After all the Nazi war in the East was a war of racial extermination. The Jews were to be worked to death on a short-term basis. But the Slavs too were to be subhumans fit only to be a slave underclass for as long as it might prove profitable for the Thousand Year Reich.
There was particularly poignant testimony from a Lithuanian Jew who had decided to leave his family, with their blessing. In fact the initial stages of the war, when they were invaded by the USSR was not so bad for young Jews because the Soviets lifted the anti-semitism that had existed and had stopped Jews from attending school and university. But then the Final Solution started, and from the woods he witnessed all the Jews in his predominantly Jewish village being herded into a barn. And then machine guns and screams before the barn was burned to the ground.
He wandered off into the forest, and eventually found a Soviet Army unit that had been cut off by the German advance. He joined them and they spent the next couple of years carrying out whatever sabotage they could, living and surviving through the harsh winter conditions as best as they could.
But he was quite blunt that it was hard for the villages because they would go to ask for food, and if it was not given they would take it. The Germans would come to the same villages and ask whether they had seen the "enemy", threatening to kill them all and destroy the village, just as his own unit did. And, he acknowledged that, some villages were wiped out by the Resistance unit that he was part of.
CassLink to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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Message 17
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Thursday, 10th November 2011
Returning to the subject from a different angle, I think Elkstone is also asking whether the different approaches to military discipline in the different armies had a strong influence on the commitment of war crimes. I think the answer to that must be: Yes, but it is not straightforward.
A distinction should be made between war crimes explicitly ordered from above, and crimes committed by the troops "on their own initiative" in a permissive environment. German forces in the East were guilty of both. Explicit orders were given for some actions, for example Hitler's order to execute all political commissars of the Red Army. But soldiers also plundered and murdered on their own initiative (in part because they desperately needed the food, clothes, and horses) when they discovered that their own officers were unwilling or powerless to stop them: Hitler also objected against attempts by army officers to punish at least the worst transgressions.
Lax discipline can contribute to the second type of atrocities. For example, the famously down-to-earth, democratic mindset of the Australians may have worked against them in the Far East, where some units brutalized the local population and their officers did nothing to stop them. One Australian officer callously commented that the native women were easy to rape, a remark that probably highlights one of the major causes of such behavior: Racism. The forces of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire held to very narrow definitions of the "superior" part of humanity, and this stimulated many soldiers to treat all others with habitual cruelty, officially encouraged from above. But British forces also have a significant record of cruelty towards people of "inferior race". And even in the past decade, high-profile scandals involving US troops in Iraq have highlighted the risks of the combination of ethnic disdain for others and a permissive environment created by the highest in command. The crucial difference is that British and US societies and governments will try to stop such deviations, while Hitler positively encouraged them.
As for atrocities organized from above, having a disciplined force probably makes it easier to organize them, but not necessarily so. It is difficult to make men kill if they really don't want to: The SS resorted to recruiting criminals to do the dirty work, and it has often been reported that German soldiers who did not want to take part in atrocities, could refuse without repercussions -- although I wonder how general this really was. Himmler's adoption of gas chambers as a tool of genocide was partially motivated by his fear that his own men would suffer too much psychological pressure if they had to murder all Jews with their own hands: A strange kind of humanitarian concern, but it illustrates his awareness that murder does not come easily to all men, even under orders.
In terms of military discipline, it is probably wrong to think that the German and Japanese forces were at one end of the scale, and the British and US forces at the other end. Traditionally, the German approach to military discipline was strict, but German soldiers were not expected to be uniformed robots. On the contrary, they were expected to take the initiative according to their training. (German officers frequently commented on the lack of initiative of British troops.) This doctrine also emphasized the importance of a relatively small social distance between officers and men, as a source of motivation and unit cohesion. Japanese military discipline was different: very harsh, emphasizing unquestioning obedience to orders, and resorting to physical punishment and random abuse. Soldiers were indeed expected to "wait for orders", a characteristic that created an enormous demand for (and a shortage of) junior officers. In many ways the Japanese military had modeled itself on the Germans after 1870 (before that it had adopted French models) but its approach to discipline and the line of command was unique.Link to this forum: Wehmacht fighting to the end and obeying orders
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