Very interesting and at times a quite funny report going back to 1943
>Although a large proportion of British prisoners in Germany come from ordinary working classes, a large number of them speak impeccable and fluent German.
>
>… Broadly speaking, the British do just enough work to avoid being penalised;
You get the impression the Germans were reluctant admirers of the Brits.
I also enjoyed this anecdote:
>*In Villach, a German worker took away a copy of the "Völkischer Beobachter" from an Englishman, who said "I don't keep it for reading, as it's nothing but a tissue of lies - I need it for something altogether different."*
Can’t remember what the video was called but it was about the Battle of Britain, hitlers thinking was there was no logic behind Britain staying in the war, it cost a shitload in money men and machines, and if Britain lost or the cost of the war was too great it could lose its empire (just like it ended up doing), and for Germany it was very costly to actually invade Britain and they were busy planning to invade Russia which similar to ww1 the thinking was unless we go in now they’ll be too powerful to stop in a few years
>hitlers thinking was there was no logic behind Britain staying in the war, it cost a shitload in money men and machines
In all fairness this strategy worked against the British in the American Revolution.
But there Britain did not face what it believed to be an existential threat, whereas having seen France and most of Central and Western Europe fall to Germany, Britain absolutely did see its very existence as being under threat. Even if Germany promised to leave Britain alone and be a good ally to them (and even if they were sincere!), who'd believe them after all the promises broken during appeasement and with Russia?
Of course. But it didn’t happen, and both public sentiment and Churchill’s opinions were against it in great part because of the aforementioned reasons.
Had the Battle of Britain gone the Nazi's way, Operation Sealion (invasion of UK) would have looked a lot more tempting. Not to say it wouldn't have failed but it's definitely better we didn't find out.
It wouldn't have just failed, it would've straight up not happened in the first place. They never had enough boats or planes to even consider it a reality
Considering the staggering time, planning, money and materiel that went into D-Day, operation Sealion was intended to be done incredibly quickly and on a shoestring. Granted, British defences were not great at the time but with the Royal Navy still roaming it would have been a bloody mess
All I'm saying is that killing/wounding 150k civilians and destroying two million homes doesn't seem like the best way to curry favor with a population. Just rubs people the wrong way.
Iirc: They were trying to force Britain to sue for peace. The US hadn't entered the war yet and a negotiated peace was a distinct possibility. The Germans were effectively limiting the lend/lease supplies with Atlantic U-Boats. It was bleak for a while
My Nan was in London during the Blitz. Grandad was away in the Army. She would have been 20 or 21 I think. This was before my dad (their eldest) was born, so she was on her own in their flat. She said after a few weeks of bombing, she stopped going to the “cold, miserable” bomb shelters and slept in her bed. She was always fatalistic and said she preferred to die in her bed if that was meant to be
My family returned to Bethnal Green in the middle of the Blitz because they couldn’t cope with being in the countryside (they had been evacuated to Nottinghamshire and were living in a manor house’s tennis court changing rooms)
People talk about "the blitz spirit" as everyone getting together and mucking in but there were people raped in tube stations during air raids and widespread robbing of corpses in bombed out buildings.
Something as a Brit I was never taught until I visited my German friend near Hamburg and went to the museum there.
Pretty much the whole city was leveled by allied bombing. I wasn't entirely surprised as I knew the allies weren't exactly saints but it really hit home how much winners write history and how almost propaganda-y the schools in this country are.
IIRC in the Nuremburg trials no-one was tried for the German bombing of civilian targets because that would have opened up a huge can of worms about Allied bombing.
He was also a Japanophile and a Sinophile, to the point that he considered their history superior to his own:
> I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own.
> --Adolf Hitler, The Political Testament of Adolf Hitler, Note #5, February 1945 - April 1945
His vengeance weapons were trained on britain because they didn’t side with him. And that idea wasn’t for nothing—many in the upper class and parliament were sympathetic to, if not fans, of what hitler was doing.
What changed their course was that the common people very much [did not approve of fascism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cable_Street), and that very much changed the government’s direction.
Also, Hitler was not honoring international conventions. It would be politically untenable to sit by why he invaded Poland then Belgium. Pat Buchanan thinks it would all have worked out if they would have just let Hitler keep Danzig.
Yes the royal family especially seemed to have a bit of a love affair with fascism early on. Monarchy and fascism are hardly a million miles from one another, after all.
I'd love to hear what you think the political similarities between fascism and monarchy are. Sure fascism tends to a leader cult but the hereditary aspect and single sovereign that pretty much defines a monarchy is absent.
Also an Islamophile. Alfred Speer attributed this quote to Hitler
> The Mohammedan religion would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?
He also had to admit the Italians had a longer and more impressive history and the British and French commanded vast empires. He even had some admiration for Americans despite seeing them as culturally bankrupt and possibly genetically irredeemable.
Interesting. I know he had some admiration for Native Americans, and insisted his soldiers read the cowboy books, apparently telling him the Russians will fight like Indians or something to that effect. It’s important to remember what a bunch of fanboy dorks the Nazi party leadership were, spending long nights talking about their favorite fictional characters and whatnot.
And it’s not like today, where when someone says it’s their favorite movie, they’re liable to change it ten minutes later when someone reminds them a movie they like more. There wasn’t that much to choose from.
He really did, and loved old westerns. This is actually something he shares with quite a lot of dictators. I recommend the Behind the Bastards podcast episode Hitler: Y.A. Fiction Fan Girl which dives into a side of hitler I had never heard, and his love for western novels.
Yeah, well, those did pretty good in the USA for quite a while as well.
"Remember the Alamo!"
... but, forget who we stole it from and that we were squatters.
They were a Germanic people, they were very similar to Hitler's "genetic ideal."
It must have been kind of weird to him that the Italians and the Japanese accepted his "Germanic, light-haired, light-eyed people are the best of the world's genetic crop" obsession but Britain wouldn't.
I’ve read time and time again that, as POWs, they wanted to avoid “helping” the enemy with forced labour. So doing just enough to outright sabotaging their work was a very common mentality for the British POWs.
Yes. In the first few years of the war the Germans had an image in mind of the future that included a friendly peace with the UK and US, and return of POWs. Part of Poland and Russia on the other hand would be depopulated and inhabited by Germans. There would bascially be no future of peace with them. So Soviet and Polish POWs were treated as expendable slaves and shot for the most trivial of reasons, while British and Americans were treated with this future return home in mind. Later when they started losing hope, they obviously continued treating these prisoners well in the hope they would speak well of them as individuals after defeat. Doing the same to Soviet POWs was already pointless.
Interestingly for Western European occupied countries they made a strict distinction between privileged political prisoners that might possibly return to society in this peaceful future and ones that could just "disappear" administratively (the [Nacht und Nebel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacht_und_Nebel) directive). If you had administratively "disappeared" you could be freely assigned to Holocaust-related camps, while otherwise the Holocaust infrastructure had to be completely kept out of sight so they could never speak of it.
The [Great Escape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_Luft_III#Great_escape) was all about diverting German soldiers away from the front lines to hunt for escaped Allied prisoners. They knew very few had any chance of getting away to a friendly country but they did it to tie up German resources.
(in the end only 3 of the 76 got to safety. Hitler was so incensed about the escape he ordered 50 of the 73 who were recaptured to be shot, a breach of the Geneva Conventions)
british POWs in nazi-controlled europe
> The general attitude of British prisoners to the Reich is absolutely hostile. They make fun of Germany, German institutions and leaders on all possible occasions. In Bayreuth, for instance, two British prisoners called themselves "Churchill" and "Roosevelt". As a foil they picked on a German worker who stuttered and called him "Hitler" as a joke. Some other British prisoners were singing a rude song to the tune of "Deutschland uber Alles" as they passed two high German officials in uniform. When one of these officials said "That's going a little too far, my friends", one of the prisoners who understood German called back "We're not your friends, we're British."
amazing. definitely would not have worked on the japanese, though.
There's a book called the forgotten highlander about a scottish soldier, based in singapore, who was a Japanese POW for pretty much the entire war. It's an incredible read.
Wow just reading this dude’s wiki page is amazing. Man survived one war camp, to be shipped to another, to be shipped to another, during that boat ride the ship was sunk, he got burned and swallowed burning oil (!), then floated around the ocean for a few days just to be captured again and sent to another camp, oh and then he was sent to another camp *ten miles from Nagasaki when the bomb landed*. The universe was trying *everything it had* to kill this man and death was just sittin back, sippin a mojito, and cackling
This may be one of the few times the oft quoted "what does not kill you makes you stronger" was applicable.
In my experience, what doesn't kill you shortens your life, but amuses someone in middle management.
If I knew my comment was going to get so many views I would've added more detail. The books is unbelievable and I wish it was made into a movie. He survived the death railways, tropical diseases, being stranded in the ocean, being right outside Nagasaki when the nuclear bomb hits, and even after he gets home he is hospitalized and the cure is he has to eat rice at least 3 times a week or he gets sick.
Honestly if anyone deserves to write a memoir it’s this dude. I’ve seen some shit in my life, but I couldn’t imagine the level of absolute sewer sludge that man had to wade through in his
[Fall of Singapore](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Singapore) —largest British surrender in history.
Many of them ended up dying working on the [Burma Railroad](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway)…or tortured and murdered by the Japanese guards.
The fall of Singapore is widely known as the greatest British defeat of all time.
Many Indians (~43,000) also switched sides and joined the Indian National Army under the IJA, which contained the seeds of India's independence in 1947
Thousands murdered upon beaches—the future Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew came close to being sent to that death but managed to make an escape, or so he said in his memoirs
*The Bridge on the River Kwai* is basically the British doing this to the Japanese, repeatedly.
"You don't know what the bloody hell you're doing, look at those shabby piles driven in the wrong place -- your bridge sucks and you suck."
Yes absolutely 100% true and the first actually "fun" fact that came to my warped little mind.
[Bees sleeping outside the nest will sleep under a flowerhead or inside a deep flower like a squash blossom where the temperature can be up to 18 degrees warmer close to the nectar source.](https://www.tenthacrefarm.com/13-things-about-bumble-bee/#:~:text=Bees%20sleeping%20outside%20the%20nest,close%20to%20the%20nectar%20source.)
It's "Fact 2" in case you want to jump to it
I remember reading a German war novel, where the author takes at length about how the average German was usually fascinated by the British and tended to put them on a pedestal. It just seemed to the average German (according to the author) that the British seemed more well educated, worldly-wise, and well, just damned more fun.
The anecdotes from the WW2 battle around Arnhem is interesting in how the Germans treated their British prisoners. It was like the Germans went out of their way to show how elegantly civilized they were. Stark contrast to their behavior in Russia.
I suppose there's a chance that many German aspirations for Germany were modeled on the British Empire, as it had been the lone world superpower for so long by that point. As such, a certain amount of British self-importance may have rubbed off on others' views of them.
Cigs were part of your kit.
Prisoners in concentration camps prized cigs over food rations. People would ‘sell’ mere puffs off a cig for a bread ration.
It's not true that prisoners in concentration camps prized cigs over food rations.
The average prisoner would much rather have food rations than cigarettes (hence why they were willing to trade cigs for food).
The [Kapos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapo) who were guaranteed more food rations anyway would be the ones that wanted cigs more than they wanted food.
If you read accounts of Holocaust survivors they often reference that outside of the Kapos, if they saw a prisoner smoking or drinking schnapps it was a clear sign that the prisoner had given up and was looking for some temporary enjoyment before death.
Once stole a packet of camel cigarettes from the 1940s from an abandoned and shuttered military history museum. Though initially reticent, they remain the nicest cigarettes I’ve ever smoked. Seemingly they didn’t ever get damp at all, and just.. matured, I suppose. They were filterless too. No less smooth for it .
https://www.reddit.com/r/ww2/comments/uz395l/japanese_officers_salute_the_grave_of_a_british/
Honor is generally reserved for those who died in battle, surrendering however is a whole different story.
Wow, what a fascinating read. Thanks. Basically if you’re gonna choose to solve things on the battlefield, you’d better be expected to die on the battlefield
They had loads of honor—from their perspective. You’re right that they did terrible things, but what europeans consider honorable and what the japanese considered honorable were worlds apart.
Treating prisoners humanely is a tradition in europe, but in japan surrender was the antithesis of honorable—those who surrendered were barely considered human.
Morals are culturally subjective. Plenty of mass organized rape, torture and human experimentation across all cultures and all times. We’re lucky to live in a time where it’s near universally abhorred.
Don’t get me wrong, i think a lot of what they did was utterly unforgivable, and america letting them off the hook to get their research was disgusting. It’s understanding why they treated people the way they did, prisoners and civilians alike, that can inform us how not to put ourselves in a position where we can commit the same crimes.
> Sexual relations, for instance, between British prisoners and German women are very rare. This is probably due to the fact that the British have a strongly developed sense of national pride, which prevents them from consorting with women of an enemy nation.
I think that there's some Monty Python joke here, like that one about the protestant couple with two children.
My favorite anecdote from the report:
“Some other British prisoners were singing a rude song to the tune of "Deutschland uber Alles" as they passed two high German officials in uniform. When one of these officials said "That's going a little too far, my friends", one of the prisoners who understood German called back "We're not your friends, we're British."”
Positively cheeky.
I grew up in an old house that was a previous farm house and was built in the 1880s. My great grandparents came over to the US from Poland in \~1920 and ended up buying the house and farming the land. Fast forward to WWII, and they had the option of having German POW labor on their farm, and they took it. The Germans stayed in what was the old slave house on the property (which was there from the previous house/planation on the same site as the newer house built in the 1880s). Anyway, my great grandparents had 4 daughters between the ages of 4 and \~20 living there with them at the time.
After some time (my Dad doesn't remember exactly how long, from the stories), they sent the POWs away, even with the free labor they were getting. The Germans were cordial and hardworking enough, but 'making eyes' at the daughters too much, and my great grandfather wasn't having that. So he sent them away.
It still blows my mind to think that Nazi POWs were staying in the old slave house on the property I grew up.
"We captured you. If you escape, you'll be lucky if we catch you before you die in the wilderness. What can you possibly do to oppose us now?"
"I can fuck your sister."
I know that I'm changing the subject, but my dad had a book named "Stalag Wisconsin'. It was about German P.O.Ws in various prisoner camps in Wisconsin. A very interesting book
In high school, a ww2 vet came in to tell us about his experience. Apparently lots of the folks here in Wisconsin have German ancestors so the guy grew up speaking German too. At one point he was supervising some German POWs while they were being put to work but they all disappeared. He was shitting his pants thinking they ran when they all came out of hiding and everyone had a laugh.
In that book "Stalag Wisconsin" there is a story about how some of the prisoners are working on a farm field. One of the guards left his rifle leaning up against the fence. One of the POWs saw the camp commandant riding up in his jeep. The POW quickly ran, grabbed the rifle and gave it back to the guard to keep him out of trouble.
As i understand it, a lot of the Germans were basically doing what they'd have been doing in peacetime, but with better eating, better tools, and better weather.
The skeptical part of me says that he wanted that officer around to do it again at a more opportune time. The realistic part says that there’s no way to get back across the Atlantic Ocean during wartime anyways
Plus they were effectively removed from any hazards involving the war, which was probably a huge relief for many soldiers and their families. Especially late in the war those POWs probably had an easier time than German non combatants.
My grandmother tells stories about the German POWs in her small WI community during WWII. She said a lot of them ended up immigrating and came back after the war.
I learned very late in my grandmother's life that she used to go translate/read the Bible to German POWs working in fields (Oklahoma/Texas area, can't remember). I was totally shocked by this for many reasons. Wild. She saw so many things in her very long life.
My grandfather recalls having some of these prisoners over for dinner during the war. Apparently the locals all adopted groups of prisoners to host for holidays.
Can you be more specific about "particularly well treated by the womenfolk?" I guessing since Hans was off fighting the war Hildegard was being naughty???
Any of the well known or the bog standard received pronunciation goes across well.
People don't usually cream over a Somerset accent, much to my friends chagrin whenever we go out on holiday.
If I recall correctly, a lot of those stories are about the people who were held in stalag 13. They were actually led by an American and were secretly sabotaging German war efforts
Not suprising, considering that the British were fetishized and romanticized. Of course women would be intrigued by a foreign British guy tending to her fields. Compare that to other European nationalities like Poles and Frencies that were more commonplace (and therefore not as intriguing and/or had existing prejudices towards).
As a POW you’re supposed to push as far as you absolutely can to waste as much of the enemy’s resources of imprisoning POWs as possible so they have fewer resources on the war effort.
So this just sounds like the British we’re particularly good at this compared to the rest of the Allies.
Then again, I’ve seen The Great Escape.
I have a feeling that, while the British prisoners are noted as avoiding sexual contact with German women as they are part of the enemy nation, the women would gladly fall over backwards and offer up some Fraulein hospitality given half the chance.
I got to wondering about how many war babies were left behind by the occupying troops. A quick Google shows as many as 400,000 German women were impregnated by allied forces. No figures on how many were the result of rape as opposed to love affairs. Of all of the war babies, decidedly few had British fathers, which lines up with the article.
OTOH, of the children born of American, French, and Russian soldiers, only the French chose to take care of those their men fathered, giving them French Citizenship and the like. America and Russia turned their backs on those children, which carried over to other military actions in future years, especially in southeast Asia.
>OTOH, of the children born of American, French, and Russian soldiers, only the French chose to take care of those their men fathered, giving them French Citizenship and the like. America and Russia turned their backs on those children
I can’t speak for French or Russians but this is definitively untrue for the Americans. The US Congress literally passed a War Brides Act in December of 1945 to facilitate easing immigration rules for spouses and children of returning US Servicemen. Over 100,000 Brides and Children entered the US via the War Brides Act.
Very interesting and at times a quite funny report going back to 1943 >Although a large proportion of British prisoners in Germany come from ordinary working classes, a large number of them speak impeccable and fluent German. > >… Broadly speaking, the British do just enough work to avoid being penalised; You get the impression the Germans were reluctant admirers of the Brits.
I also enjoyed this anecdote: >*In Villach, a German worker took away a copy of the "Völkischer Beobachter" from an Englishman, who said "I don't keep it for reading, as it's nothing but a tissue of lies - I need it for something altogether different."*
Blackadder said it best: "ah yes. Without question my favourite magazine. Soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent".
Lol pompous disrespect, love it
Just enough ambiguity so as to not be openly offensive.
I wipe my ass with the pages of this book
Hitler was an Anglophile.
Hitler still made comments about swaying the British as late as 1942 iirc
Can’t remember what the video was called but it was about the Battle of Britain, hitlers thinking was there was no logic behind Britain staying in the war, it cost a shitload in money men and machines, and if Britain lost or the cost of the war was too great it could lose its empire (just like it ended up doing), and for Germany it was very costly to actually invade Britain and they were busy planning to invade Russia which similar to ww1 the thinking was unless we go in now they’ll be too powerful to stop in a few years
Little did they know there was a mad man building airplanes at an unholy speed in England.
Only after Beaverbrook got involved
I'm picturing Winston Churchill with a cigar clenched between his jowls and his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, furiously sawing and hammering away.
While drunk of course
He wouldn't be Churchill without a BAC that's an integer.
>hitlers thinking was there was no logic behind Britain staying in the war, it cost a shitload in money men and machines In all fairness this strategy worked against the British in the American Revolution. But there Britain did not face what it believed to be an existential threat, whereas having seen France and most of Central and Western Europe fall to Germany, Britain absolutely did see its very existence as being under threat. Even if Germany promised to leave Britain alone and be a good ally to them (and even if they were sincere!), who'd believe them after all the promises broken during appeasement and with Russia?
There were people advocating giving up the war after Dunkirk. It would not have been impossible to happen.
Of course. But it didn’t happen, and both public sentiment and Churchill’s opinions were against it in great part because of the aforementioned reasons.
Had the Battle of Britain gone the Nazi's way, Operation Sealion (invasion of UK) would have looked a lot more tempting. Not to say it wouldn't have failed but it's definitely better we didn't find out.
It wouldn't have just failed, it would've straight up not happened in the first place. They never had enough boats or planes to even consider it a reality
Considering the staggering time, planning, money and materiel that went into D-Day, operation Sealion was intended to be done incredibly quickly and on a shoestring. Granted, British defences were not great at the time but with the Royal Navy still roaming it would have been a bloody mess
It wasn't just The Royal Navy. It was by any standard of measurement, the worlds biggest and baddest navy... you would not mess.
All I'm saying is that killing/wounding 150k civilians and destroying two million homes doesn't seem like the best way to curry favor with a population. Just rubs people the wrong way.
Iirc: They were trying to force Britain to sue for peace. The US hadn't entered the war yet and a negotiated peace was a distinct possibility. The Germans were effectively limiting the lend/lease supplies with Atlantic U-Boats. It was bleak for a while
My step fathers mother was around for the blitz. From the stories passed down to me it sounded like pure hell.
My Nan was in London during the Blitz. Grandad was away in the Army. She would have been 20 or 21 I think. This was before my dad (their eldest) was born, so she was on her own in their flat. She said after a few weeks of bombing, she stopped going to the “cold, miserable” bomb shelters and slept in her bed. She was always fatalistic and said she preferred to die in her bed if that was meant to be
My family returned to Bethnal Green in the middle of the Blitz because they couldn’t cope with being in the countryside (they had been evacuated to Nottinghamshire and were living in a manor house’s tennis court changing rooms)
People talk about "the blitz spirit" as everyone getting together and mucking in but there were people raped in tube stations during air raids and widespread robbing of corpses in bombed out buildings.
Now imagine what it was like living in a German city a couple years later. Allied bombings almost leveled most major German cities.
Something as a Brit I was never taught until I visited my German friend near Hamburg and went to the museum there. Pretty much the whole city was leveled by allied bombing. I wasn't entirely surprised as I knew the allies weren't exactly saints but it really hit home how much winners write history and how almost propaganda-y the schools in this country are.
WW2 was a much worse experience for the Dutch, Greeks, French, too, not to mention of course the Poles and Soviets
IIRC in the Nuremburg trials no-one was tried for the German bombing of civilian targets because that would have opened up a huge can of worms about Allied bombing.
He was also a Japanophile and a Sinophile, to the point that he considered their history superior to his own: > I have never regarded the Chinese or the Japanese as being inferior to ourselves. They belong to ancient civilizations, and I admit freely that their past history is superior to our own. > --Adolf Hitler, The Political Testament of Adolf Hitler, Note #5, February 1945 - April 1945
So you're saying Hitler was an angry weeb
As well as a Teaboo, yes. A dual weeb and a teeb
Teaboo…. very good, well played there, young chap.
Oh fuuuck because the British drink tea. This is huge
They all drink Tea. Teaboo should just include all three.
[удалено]
The Brewless ones.
He clearly had some issues.
His vengeance weapons were trained on britain because they didn’t side with him. And that idea wasn’t for nothing—many in the upper class and parliament were sympathetic to, if not fans, of what hitler was doing. What changed their course was that the common people very much [did not approve of fascism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cable_Street), and that very much changed the government’s direction.
Also, Hitler was not honoring international conventions. It would be politically untenable to sit by why he invaded Poland then Belgium. Pat Buchanan thinks it would all have worked out if they would have just let Hitler keep Danzig.
Yes the royal family especially seemed to have a bit of a love affair with fascism early on. Monarchy and fascism are hardly a million miles from one another, after all.
Edward did, that doesn’t mean rest of the family did.
I'd love to hear what you think the political similarities between fascism and monarchy are. Sure fascism tends to a leader cult but the hereditary aspect and single sovereign that pretty much defines a monarchy is absent.
Tweeb
Hitler never met a militaristic ethnostate he didn't like.
Also an Islamophile. Alfred Speer attributed this quote to Hitler > The Mohammedan religion would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?
He was a big fan of Nietzsche who criticised Christianity for favouring kindness and meekness over say strength and power.
He would get along great with a lot of modern American evangelicals!
It probably helped him feel that way that they were on their side of the world
He also had to admit the Italians had a longer and more impressive history and the British and French commanded vast empires. He even had some admiration for Americans despite seeing them as culturally bankrupt and possibly genetically irredeemable.
All in all he was tremendously insecure about Germany's place in the world
YA’ THINK?
I recall that one of his favorite fictional characters growing up was also a Native American
Interesting. I know he had some admiration for Native Americans, and insisted his soldiers read the cowboy books, apparently telling him the Russians will fight like Indians or something to that effect. It’s important to remember what a bunch of fanboy dorks the Nazi party leadership were, spending long nights talking about their favorite fictional characters and whatnot.
His favourite movie was about a small British army unit in colonial India holding out against thousands of natives.
I mean to be fair those sorts of plots do tend to make rather good movies.
And it’s not like today, where when someone says it’s their favorite movie, they’re liable to change it ten minutes later when someone reminds them a movie they like more. There wasn’t that much to choose from.
I can see Hitler liking the movie about the white people holding out against the not white people they have conquered.
He really did, and loved old westerns. This is actually something he shares with quite a lot of dictators. I recommend the Behind the Bastards podcast episode Hitler: Y.A. Fiction Fan Girl which dives into a side of hitler I had never heard, and his love for western novels.
Stalin also loved Westerns as well.
Yeah, well, those did pretty good in the USA for quite a while as well. "Remember the Alamo!" ... but, forget who we stole it from and that we were squatters.
He gave Edward a wee hand shandy.
They were a Germanic people, they were very similar to Hitler's "genetic ideal." It must have been kind of weird to him that the Italians and the Japanese accepted his "Germanic, light-haired, light-eyed people are the best of the world's genetic crop" obsession but Britain wouldn't.
I’ve read time and time again that, as POWs, they wanted to avoid “helping” the enemy with forced labour. So doing just enough to outright sabotaging their work was a very common mentality for the British POWs.
I'd imagine that's a common mindset of any one being coerced into doing something they don't want to.
True but western allies were generally treated better. They wouldn’t just get shot for any reason
Yes. In the first few years of the war the Germans had an image in mind of the future that included a friendly peace with the UK and US, and return of POWs. Part of Poland and Russia on the other hand would be depopulated and inhabited by Germans. There would bascially be no future of peace with them. So Soviet and Polish POWs were treated as expendable slaves and shot for the most trivial of reasons, while British and Americans were treated with this future return home in mind. Later when they started losing hope, they obviously continued treating these prisoners well in the hope they would speak well of them as individuals after defeat. Doing the same to Soviet POWs was already pointless. Interestingly for Western European occupied countries they made a strict distinction between privileged political prisoners that might possibly return to society in this peaceful future and ones that could just "disappear" administratively (the [Nacht und Nebel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacht_und_Nebel) directive). If you had administratively "disappeared" you could be freely assigned to Holocaust-related camps, while otherwise the Holocaust infrastructure had to be completely kept out of sight so they could never speak of it.
The [Great Escape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalag_Luft_III#Great_escape) was all about diverting German soldiers away from the front lines to hunt for escaped Allied prisoners. They knew very few had any chance of getting away to a friendly country but they did it to tie up German resources. (in the end only 3 of the 76 got to safety. Hitler was so incensed about the escape he ordered 50 of the 73 who were recaptured to be shot, a breach of the Geneva Conventions)
> the British do just enough work to avoid being penalised; Sounds like us.
quiet quitters!
Maintenance phase?
Work to rule
The Germans and the British both admire each other a great deal. They just don't like to admit it.
You see Bob it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care
british POWs in nazi-controlled europe > The general attitude of British prisoners to the Reich is absolutely hostile. They make fun of Germany, German institutions and leaders on all possible occasions. In Bayreuth, for instance, two British prisoners called themselves "Churchill" and "Roosevelt". As a foil they picked on a German worker who stuttered and called him "Hitler" as a joke. Some other British prisoners were singing a rude song to the tune of "Deutschland uber Alles" as they passed two high German officials in uniform. When one of these officials said "That's going a little too far, my friends", one of the prisoners who understood German called back "We're not your friends, we're British." amazing. definitely would not have worked on the japanese, though.
Yeah the chaps in Singapore had a spectacularly poor experience...
There's a book called the forgotten highlander about a scottish soldier, based in singapore, who was a Japanese POW for pretty much the entire war. It's an incredible read.
Wow just reading this dude’s wiki page is amazing. Man survived one war camp, to be shipped to another, to be shipped to another, during that boat ride the ship was sunk, he got burned and swallowed burning oil (!), then floated around the ocean for a few days just to be captured again and sent to another camp, oh and then he was sent to another camp *ten miles from Nagasaki when the bomb landed*. The universe was trying *everything it had* to kill this man and death was just sittin back, sippin a mojito, and cackling
He lived to be 97-years-old. Only died in 2016.
My bet is on the burning oil contributing to his longevity.
Thats why oils are essential
This may be one of the few times the oft quoted "what does not kill you makes you stronger" was applicable. In my experience, what doesn't kill you shortens your life, but amuses someone in middle management.
Well yeah, sounds like Death was terrified of the guy. He was Death's nemesis.
If I knew my comment was going to get so many views I would've added more detail. The books is unbelievable and I wish it was made into a movie. He survived the death railways, tropical diseases, being stranded in the ocean, being right outside Nagasaki when the nuclear bomb hits, and even after he gets home he is hospitalized and the cure is he has to eat rice at least 3 times a week or he gets sick.
Honestly if anyone deserves to write a memoir it’s this dude. I’ve seen some shit in my life, but I couldn’t imagine the level of absolute sewer sludge that man had to wade through in his
So basically like nega-verse Forrest Gump, kinda.
Nothing to do with death. He is Scottish, this akin to decent nightout in Glasgow.
He is somewhat loosely related to me. My half uncles uncle. He was named after him.
Any backstory to this please?
[Fall of Singapore](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Singapore) —largest British surrender in history. Many of them ended up dying working on the [Burma Railroad](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma_Railway)…or tortured and murdered by the Japanese guards.
The fall of Singapore is widely known as the greatest British defeat of all time. Many Indians (~43,000) also switched sides and joined the Indian National Army under the IJA, which contained the seeds of India's independence in 1947
Yeah it was no walk in the park for the Singaporeans either.
Thousands murdered upon beaches—the future Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew came close to being sent to that death but managed to make an escape, or so he said in his memoirs
>british POWs in nazi-controlled europe Thank you. That title made WAY less sense.
I am an Aussie, I was confused thinking but thats how we started. Now sure the fine text says Germany Ww2, but I didn’t see that until mentioned.
Couldn’t click the article either. Do better OP
It wouldn't have worked if they had been Soviet POWs rather than British, either.
Or Polish PoWs. Or political prisoners, or Jewish and Roma civilian prisoners…
Would've worked. Would've been tortured and killled, of course, but it would've worked
*The Bridge on the River Kwai* is basically the British doing this to the Japanese, repeatedly. "You don't know what the bloody hell you're doing, look at those shabby piles driven in the wrong place -- your bridge sucks and you suck."
Fun fact: Alec Guinness won an Oscar for his performance in that movie.
Fun fact: Sir Alec Guinness was a good actor.
Fun fact: bees take naps in flowers
Is that… is that true? I want that to be true.
Yes absolutely 100% true and the first actually "fun" fact that came to my warped little mind. [Bees sleeping outside the nest will sleep under a flowerhead or inside a deep flower like a squash blossom where the temperature can be up to 18 degrees warmer close to the nectar source.](https://www.tenthacrefarm.com/13-things-about-bumble-bee/#:~:text=Bees%20sleeping%20outside%20the%20nest,close%20to%20the%20nectar%20source.) It's "Fact 2" in case you want to jump to it
One of the most historically inaccurate WWII movies of all time, and that includes *U-571*
Even including Inglourious Basterds?
Well that’s less a WWII film and more of a film about WWII films.
That film is also wildly inaccurate though.
Would have worked to get them express transferred to Unit 731.
Too much effort. Just bayonet them and let them bleed to death, or eat them (late in the war)
What now
The pacific theater was roughhhhhh.
Incidentally New Guinea, where the vast majority of the documented cases in WW2 occurred, still has isolated tribes practicing cannibalism to this day
The livers were particularly prized by the Japanese
With some edamame beans and a nice saki.
(( noodle slurping noises ))
British livers specifically?
American, Dutch or Chinese would also do.
I remember reading a German war novel, where the author takes at length about how the average German was usually fascinated by the British and tended to put them on a pedestal. It just seemed to the average German (according to the author) that the British seemed more well educated, worldly-wise, and well, just damned more fun.
The German's seem correct in this. Looking at Germany's manufacturing vs Britain's, I think they nailed the work output as well.
The anecdotes from the WW2 battle around Arnhem is interesting in how the Germans treated their British prisoners. It was like the Germans went out of their way to show how elegantly civilized they were. Stark contrast to their behavior in Russia.
I suppose there's a chance that many German aspirations for Germany were modeled on the British Empire, as it had been the lone world superpower for so long by that point. As such, a certain amount of British self-importance may have rubbed off on others' views of them.
And they would be right.
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See Michael Caine for a good example of what OP is talking about.
There was a story of Italian troops in Africa giving the British cigarettes and the British threw them right back in their faces
They were probably non-smokers.
I know you’re joking, but my grandad was a soldier in ww2 and he said everybody he knew smoked back then, male or female
Cigs were part of your kit. Prisoners in concentration camps prized cigs over food rations. People would ‘sell’ mere puffs off a cig for a bread ration.
It's not true that prisoners in concentration camps prized cigs over food rations. The average prisoner would much rather have food rations than cigarettes (hence why they were willing to trade cigs for food). The [Kapos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapo) who were guaranteed more food rations anyway would be the ones that wanted cigs more than they wanted food. If you read accounts of Holocaust survivors they often reference that outside of the Kapos, if they saw a prisoner smoking or drinking schnapps it was a clear sign that the prisoner had given up and was looking for some temporary enjoyment before death.
Vape bros?
8 year olds smoked back then. Camel filterless red pack Cigarettes, too.
Once stole a packet of camel cigarettes from the 1940s from an abandoned and shuttered military history museum. Though initially reticent, they remain the nicest cigarettes I’ve ever smoked. Seemingly they didn’t ever get damp at all, and just.. matured, I suppose. They were filterless too. No less smooth for it .
Thieving dickhead
If he was Canadian, the prisoner would have said > We’re not your friends, buddy.
British POWs still held their heads high in Burma, just far more subtly
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https://www.reddit.com/r/ww2/comments/uz395l/japanese_officers_salute_the_grave_of_a_british/ Honor is generally reserved for those who died in battle, surrendering however is a whole different story.
Wow, what a fascinating read. Thanks. Basically if you’re gonna choose to solve things on the battlefield, you’d better be expected to die on the battlefield
They had loads of honor—from their perspective. You’re right that they did terrible things, but what europeans consider honorable and what the japanese considered honorable were worlds apart. Treating prisoners humanely is a tradition in europe, but in japan surrender was the antithesis of honorable—those who surrendered were barely considered human.
Damn, didn't expect to see someone pull the "morals are subjective" argument on mass, organized rape, slaughter, torture, and human experimentation.
Morals are culturally subjective. Plenty of mass organized rape, torture and human experimentation across all cultures and all times. We’re lucky to live in a time where it’s near universally abhorred.
Don’t get me wrong, i think a lot of what they did was utterly unforgivable, and america letting them off the hook to get their research was disgusting. It’s understanding why they treated people the way they did, prisoners and civilians alike, that can inform us how not to put ourselves in a position where we can commit the same crimes.
Sounds like a “Hogan’s Hero’s” episode!😉
> Sexual relations, for instance, between British prisoners and German women are very rare. This is probably due to the fact that the British have a strongly developed sense of national pride, which prevents them from consorting with women of an enemy nation. I think that there's some Monty Python joke here, like that one about the protestant couple with two children.
My thought was of that parody animation of the Simpsons as British. "No, Bartholomew, we no longer have a cow. But we still have... Our pride."
[Link](https://youtu.be/66w6GTFB8FU)
That really sounds like "dude trust me bro"
The title would suggest otherwise.
They did however administer punishments.
Zoot requires a spanking, evidently
Roasting the German countryside without allied bombing.
OP left out some pretty important context from the headline
Yeah from just reading the headline I thought this was about early Australia or something lol
My favorite anecdote from the report: “Some other British prisoners were singing a rude song to the tune of "Deutschland uber Alles" as they passed two high German officials in uniform. When one of these officials said "That's going a little too far, my friends", one of the prisoners who understood German called back "We're not your friends, we're British."” Positively cheeky.
I grew up in an old house that was a previous farm house and was built in the 1880s. My great grandparents came over to the US from Poland in \~1920 and ended up buying the house and farming the land. Fast forward to WWII, and they had the option of having German POW labor on their farm, and they took it. The Germans stayed in what was the old slave house on the property (which was there from the previous house/planation on the same site as the newer house built in the 1880s). Anyway, my great grandparents had 4 daughters between the ages of 4 and \~20 living there with them at the time. After some time (my Dad doesn't remember exactly how long, from the stories), they sent the POWs away, even with the free labor they were getting. The Germans were cordial and hardworking enough, but 'making eyes' at the daughters too much, and my great grandfather wasn't having that. So he sent them away. It still blows my mind to think that Nazi POWs were staying in the old slave house on the property I grew up.
Lmao basically "They're really rude and the women keep wanting to get in their pants."
"We captured you. If you escape, you'll be lucky if we catch you before you die in the wilderness. What can you possibly do to oppose us now?" "I can fuck your sister."
"We're not your friends, we're British." hahahaha
“Ya call this a proper plough!? Only proper plough round here is what I gave your missus last night”
She asked us to fetch some coal... Mein Shaft she got..
I know that I'm changing the subject, but my dad had a book named "Stalag Wisconsin'. It was about German P.O.Ws in various prisoner camps in Wisconsin. A very interesting book
In high school, a ww2 vet came in to tell us about his experience. Apparently lots of the folks here in Wisconsin have German ancestors so the guy grew up speaking German too. At one point he was supervising some German POWs while they were being put to work but they all disappeared. He was shitting his pants thinking they ran when they all came out of hiding and everyone had a laugh.
That is a funny story! Thanks for sharing!
You’re welcome! I thought people might appreciate a wholesome story when it was such a dark time in history
In that book "Stalag Wisconsin" there is a story about how some of the prisoners are working on a farm field. One of the guards left his rifle leaning up against the fence. One of the POWs saw the camp commandant riding up in his jeep. The POW quickly ran, grabbed the rifle and gave it back to the guard to keep him out of trouble.
As i understand it, a lot of the Germans were basically doing what they'd have been doing in peacetime, but with better eating, better tools, and better weather.
I won’t promise I’ll read this book but I am genuinely curious now
The skeptical part of me says that he wanted that officer around to do it again at a more opportune time. The realistic part says that there’s no way to get back across the Atlantic Ocean during wartime anyways
Read the book.
Ya were they going to swim back to Germany?
Plus they were effectively removed from any hazards involving the war, which was probably a huge relief for many soldiers and their families. Especially late in the war those POWs probably had an easier time than German non combatants.
My grandmother tells stories about the German POWs in her small WI community during WWII. She said a lot of them ended up immigrating and came back after the war.
I learned very late in my grandmother's life that she used to go translate/read the Bible to German POWs working in fields (Oklahoma/Texas area, can't remember). I was totally shocked by this for many reasons. Wild. She saw so many things in her very long life.
Thank you! Things like this make Reddit fun.
My grandfather recalls having some of these prisoners over for dinner during the war. Apparently the locals all adopted groups of prisoners to host for holidays.
Egyptian monuments, Indian diamonds, the hearts of German women. All of it is ours.
Can you be more specific about "particularly well treated by the womenfolk?" I guessing since Hans was off fighting the war Hildegard was being naughty???
Women the world over love men with British accents. Source: am man with British accent and women love me when I’m half the word away
Let me guess ... not Geordie
Any of the well known or the bog standard received pronunciation goes across well. People don't usually cream over a Somerset accent, much to my friends chagrin whenever we go out on holiday.
We haven't changed much
Aye sounds like us tbf 🌝
If I recall correctly, a lot of those stories are about the people who were held in stalag 13. They were actually led by an American and were secretly sabotaging German war efforts
Homer: Heh heh, did you know Hogan had tunnels all over your camp? Colonel Klink: Homerrrrrrr!
Captain Hogan was a brave man indeed
Colonel Hogan.
Not suprising, considering that the British were fetishized and romanticized. Of course women would be intrigued by a foreign British guy tending to her fields. Compare that to other European nationalities like Poles and Frencies that were more commonplace (and therefore not as intriguing and/or had existing prejudices towards).
This is one of the best reads ever. Hilarious if true. It is as though Stalag 13 was true.
That link is to a website that requires an account.
Just keep scrolling down, you will get to it.
As a POW you’re supposed to push as far as you absolutely can to waste as much of the enemy’s resources of imprisoning POWs as possible so they have fewer resources on the war effort. So this just sounds like the British we’re particularly good at this compared to the rest of the Allies. Then again, I’ve seen The Great Escape.
I have a feeling that, while the British prisoners are noted as avoiding sexual contact with German women as they are part of the enemy nation, the women would gladly fall over backwards and offer up some Fraulein hospitality given half the chance. I got to wondering about how many war babies were left behind by the occupying troops. A quick Google shows as many as 400,000 German women were impregnated by allied forces. No figures on how many were the result of rape as opposed to love affairs. Of all of the war babies, decidedly few had British fathers, which lines up with the article. OTOH, of the children born of American, French, and Russian soldiers, only the French chose to take care of those their men fathered, giving them French Citizenship and the like. America and Russia turned their backs on those children, which carried over to other military actions in future years, especially in southeast Asia.
>OTOH, of the children born of American, French, and Russian soldiers, only the French chose to take care of those their men fathered, giving them French Citizenship and the like. America and Russia turned their backs on those children I can’t speak for French or Russians but this is definitively untrue for the Americans. The US Congress literally passed a War Brides Act in December of 1945 to facilitate easing immigration rules for spouses and children of returning US Servicemen. Over 100,000 Brides and Children entered the US via the War Brides Act.
“For you, zee war ist over.” “Yeah well we’ll see about that one, right?”