ITT: Moments in history that give you feels >"Dear Mother,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_and_let_live_(World_War_I)

>Diocletian became the first Roman emperor to abdicate willingly after twenty years of rule. Diocletian and Maximian were both present on 11 November 308, to see Galerius appoint Licinius to be augustus in place of Severus, who had died at the hands of Maxentius. He ordered Maximian, who had attempted to return to power after his retirement, to step down permanently. At Carnuntum people begged Diocletian to return to the throne, to resolve the conflicts that had arisen through Constantine's rise to power and Maxentius' usurpation. Diocletian's reply: "If you could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely wouldn't dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed."
>He lived on for four more years, spending his days in his palace gardens. He saw his tetrarchic system fail, torn by the selfish ambitions of his successors. He heard of Maximian's third claim to the throne, his forced suicide, his damnatio memoriae.
>In his own palace, statues and portraits of his former companion emperor were torn down and destroyed. Deep in despair and illness, Diocletian may have committed suicide. He died on 3 December 312.

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>>3054680
The whole story of the female SOE agents and the aftermath of the war in which Vera Atkins searched for information on what had happened to them as the night and fog policy meant civilian spies like them were to disappear and never have their fates discovered. Noor Inayat Khan's last words were Liberte and she was from indian royality, a children's author and basically a cinnamon roll yet when it came to the nazis she was fucking badass and survived much longer in the field as a wireless operator than many others when the spy ring prosper collapsed. The story of the four spies killed by lethal injection then cremation in the ovens at a male camp is also depressing as fuck. They were Andrée Borrel, Sonia Olschanezky, Vera Leigh, Diana Rowden.One of them woke up during the process of putting them into the oven.

>>3055342
>Andrée Borrel
>Evidence collected immediately after the war by Squadron Officer Vera Atkins and Major Bill Barkworth of the SAS War Crimes investigation team indicates that she regained consciousness before being placed in the cremation oven and fought to save her life, facially scarring the camp executioner who was placing her in the oven. However, she was unable to escape and was put into the flames whilst still alive. Both the doctor who administered the injection and the camp executioner were later executed by the Allies for war crimes.

Damn

>>3055517
I'm no storm fag, but how the fuck could you have evidence of such an occurrence? What would it be? A written memo by someone? Film?

In the opening hours of what would be the first Battle of Grozny, the commanders of the 131st Maikop Motor-Rifle Brigade (which was two battalions strong) was hailed by a Chechen militant commander, who begged the Russians to rethink their push into the city with tanks, armored personnel carriers and infantry. The chilling conversation was recorded and has been featured in videos and documentaries in what was one of the bloodiest Russian conflicts in history.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWzB8IkXWJI

the mechanized Russian units -staffed mostly by conscripts – were overwhelmed by the rebel fighters, surrounded and begging for reinforcements over the radio. Within sixty hours, the 1,000 man-strong Maikop Brigade -including Lieutenant Colonel Savin- would be wiped out of existence by the rebels.

>>3055539
Witness testimonies.

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The Schoolhouse Blizzard. 235 deaths, many of them children. "The Children's Blizzard" basically had an entire chapter describing in detail how these children would have slowly died, to say nothing of those who survived the night in freezing temperatures, only to die after they were able to stand up and walk to look for help.

>>3055587
>They froze alone or with their parents or perished in frantic, hopeless pursuit of loved ones. They died with the frozen bloody skin torn from their faces, where they had clawed off the mask of ice again and again. Some died within hours of getting lost; some lived through the night and died before first light. They were found standing waist deep in drifts with their hands frozen to barbed-wire fences, clutching at straw piles, buried under overturned wagons, on their backs, facedown on the snow with their arms outstretched as if trying to crawl. Mothers died sitting up with their children around them in fireless houses when the hay or coal or bits of furniture were exhausted and they were too weak or too frightened to go for more.

>>3055762
Blizzards get pretty rough out on the prairie. I had a great uncle who died when his truck broke down 300 feet from home and he tried to walk the rest of the way.

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My very dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days—perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing—perfectly willing—to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have often been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm.

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for me, for we shall meet again.

>Farewell, my brother, tomorrow I shall be no more. The peace of my heart is a sure sign of my innocence. The tribunal has decided that I am guilty and must die. Die! At 36 on the scaffold. It is a terrible, unbearable idea.

From a farewell letter written by a man executed during the French Revolution, just before his death.There's an entire book of these letters ("Last Letters: Prisons and Prisoners of the French Revolution")

>>3055865
>ashokan farewell starts playing
;_;

>>3055342
>>3055517
You only care because they're women.

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>>3055865

>>3054680
Damn it. To think that if sanity had prevailed, they could have simply hashed things out and ended the war.

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>Continuing to act as a priest, Kolbe was subjected to violent harassment, including beating and lashings, and once had to be smuggled to a prison hospital by friendly inmates.[2][16] At the end of July 1941, three prisoners disappeared from the camp, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10 men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, "My wife! My children!", Kolbe volunteered to take his place.[8]

>According to an eye witness, an assistant janitor at that time, in his prison cell, Kolbe led the prisoners in prayer to Our Lady. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After two weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe remained alive. “The guards wanted the bunker emptied, so they gave Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Kolbe is said to have raised his left arm and calmly waited for the deadly injection.[11] His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary.[16]

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>>3058183
> Early that morning, a wounded American could be heard calling from the middle of a German minefield in a no man's land separating the combatants. "Help me" the man cried. His unit had withdrawn , however, and no U.S. troops were close enough to hear. Lengfeld ordered his men not to shoot if Americans came to rescue the man. But none came. The soldiers weakening voice was heard for hours.

> "Help me" he called, again and again. At about 10:30 that morning, Lengfeld could bear the cries no longer. He formed a rescue squad, complete with Red Cross vests and flags, and led his men toward the wounded American. He never made it. Approaching the soldier, he stepped on a land mine, and the exploding metal fragments tore deeply into his body. Eight hours later Lengfeld is dead. The fate of the American is unknown.

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>>3058186
Better known, I guess:

>By July 1944, Germany was losing the war; the SS began closing down the easternmost concentration camps and deporting the remaining prisoners westward. Many were killed in Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Schindler convinced SS-Hauptsturmführer Amon Göth, commandant of the nearby Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, to allow him to move his factory to Brünnlitz in the Sudetenland, thus sparing his workers from almost certain death in the gas chambers. Using names provided by Jewish Ghetto Police officer Marcel Goldberg, Göth's secretary Mietek Pemper compiled and typed the list of 1,200 Jews who travelled to Brünnlitz in October 1944. Schindler continued to bribe SS officials to prevent the execution of his workers until the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945, by which time he had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black-market purchases of supplies for his workers.

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>>3058194
also incidents like pic related are beautiful

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>>3058204
>Karl-Heinz Rosch was employed in October 1944 as a gunner on a farm in Goirle in the Netherlands. Under Allied fire, he secured two young children who were still playing in the courtyard. When he returned to the farm, he was killed by a grenade at the place where the children had been playing. [1]

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>>3058208
during the My Lai Massacre:

>Warrant Officer (WO1) Hugh Thompson, Jr., a helicopter pilot from Company B (Aero-Scouts), 123rd Aviation Battalion, Americal Division, saw dead and wounded civilians as he was flying over the village of Sơn Mỹ providing close-air support for ground forces.[47] The crew made several attempts to radio for help for the wounded. They landed their helicopter by a ditch, which they noted was full of bodies and in which there was movement.[48] Thompson asked a sergeant he encountered there (David Mitchell of the 1st Platoon) if he could help get the people out of the ditch, and the sergeant replied that he would "help them out of their misery". Thompson, shocked and confused, then spoke with 2LT Calley, who claimed to be "just following orders". As the helicopter took off, Thompson saw Mitchell firing into the ditch.[49]

>Thompson and his crew witnessed an unarmed woman being kicked and shot at point-blank range by Captain Medina, who later claimed that he thought she had a hand grenade.[50] Thompson then saw a group of civilians (again consisting of children, women, and old men) at a bunker being approached by ground personnel. Thompson landed and told his crew that if the soldiers shot at the Vietnamese while he was trying to get them out of the bunker that they were to open fire on these soldiers.[51] Thompson later testified that he spoke with a lieutenant (identified as Stephen Brooks of 2nd Platoon) and told him there were women and children in the bunker, and asked if the lieutenant would help get them out. According to Thompson, "he [the lieutenant] said the only way to get them out was with a hand grenade". Thompson testified that he then told Brooks to "just hold your men right where they are, and I'll get the kids out". He found 12–16 people in the bunker, coaxed them out and led them to the helicopter, standing with them while they were flown out in two groups.[52]

>>3054680
When Germany surrendered in WW1.

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"Hold the corridor"

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Diary of Tanya Savicheva, 11 years old, December 1941-May 1942, Leningrad:

>Zhenya died on December 28th at 12 noon, 1941

>Grandma died on the 25th of January at 3 o'clock, 1942

>Leka died March 17th, 1942, at 5 o'clock in the morning, 1942

>Uncle Vasya died on April 13th at 2 o'clock in the morning, 1942

>Uncle Lesha May 10th, at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, 1942

>Mama on May 13th at 7:30 in the morning, 1942

>The Savichevas are dead

>Everyone is dead

>Only Tanya is left

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>The sentence was carried out in the Cerro de las Campanas on the morning of 19 June 1867, when Maximilian, along with Generals Miramón and Mejía, were executed by a firing squad. He spoke only in Spanish and gave his executioners a portion of gold not to shoot him in the head so that his mother could see his face. His last words were, "I forgive everyone, and I ask everyone to forgive me. May my blood, which is about to be shed, be for the good of the country. Viva Mexico, viva la independencia!"[40] Generals Miramón and Mejía were shot after him. Both died shouting, "Long live the Emperor."

>>3058254
The siege of Leningrad must have been extremely bad man, I've read the people grew cabbage on cemetaries and even had to resort to cannibalism sometimes...

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>Anne de Gaulle was the youngest daughter of General Charles de Gaulle

>She was born with Down syndrome and lived with her family until her death. De Gaulle's relatives all testified that the General, who was normally undemonstrative in his affections for his family, was more open and extroverted with Anne. He would entertain her with songs, dances, and pantomimes

>She could only utter one word: Papa

>Anne died of pneumonia on 6 February 1948, aged 20, at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises. Upon her death, her father said: "Now, she's like the others."

>On 22 August 1962, Charles de Gaulle was the victim of an attempted assassination at Petit-Clamart. He later said that the potentially fatal bullet had been stopped by the frame of the photograph of Anne that he always carried with him, placed this particular day on the rear shelf of his car. When he died in 1970, he was buried in the cemetery of Colombey beside his beloved daughter.

He was a good man

>>3055865
Holy shit what a poet

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>Sophie, Sophie, don't die, you must live, for the children

>>3058186
All the good ones are dead.

>>3058879
blablabla, just appreciate the heroes, no need to talk shit

>>3058337
and YOU must live for the 20th century

>>3055865
Was it normal for a soldier to be this articulate? This is beautifully written

Hélène Berr (1921-1945, beaten to death at Bergen-Belsen); from a journal she left behind in Paris:

I think about history. I think about the future. And when we will all be dead. Life is so short, and so precious. And now that I see it being squandered criminally or pointlessly all around me, on what can I rely? Everything loses its meaning with death constantly staring you in the face. I fear that I won’t be here when Jean returns. It’s a very new feeling. I still imagine him coming back and I still think of the future. But when I am fully in reality, when I see it clearly, I am gripped by anguish.

But it is not fear as such, because I am not afraid of what might happen to me; I think I would accept it, for I have accepted many hard things, and I’m not one to back away from a challenge. But I fear that my beautiful dream may never be brought to fruition, may never be realized.

I’m not afraid for myself but for something beautiful that might have been.

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"You know what's gonna happen? I'll tell you what's gonna happen. Troops are now forming behind the line of trees. When they come out, they'll be under enemy long-range artillery fire. Solid shot. Percussion. Every gun they have. Troops will come out under fire with more than a mile to walk. And still, within the open field, among the range of aimed muskets. They'll be slowed by that fence out there, and the formation - what's left of it - will begin to come apart. When they cross that road, they'll be under short-range artillery. Canister fire. Thousands of little bits of shrapnel wiping the holes in the lines. If they get to the wall without breaking up, there won't be many left. A mathematical equation... But maybe, just maybe, our own artillery will break up their defenses. There's always that hope. That's Hancock out there, and he ain't gonna run. So it's mathematical after all. If they get to that road, or beyond it, we'll suffer over fifty percent casualties. But, Harrison... I don't believe my boys will reach that wall."

Almost certainly a fictitious quote, but I imagine it captured the actual Longstreet's despair perfectly.

>>3059505
He was a lawyer and politician before signing up and was a major. The fact he's known specifically for this letter implies that writing of that quality was uncommon, especially considering his background and rank elevates him far above your average soldier.

>>3059505
This was actually brought up in one of my history courses at uni. We had to write a paper (it may have been a take home essay test, can't remember, but it was only a couple pages at most) and when the prof returned them he basically said that the majority of the class was writing at a middle school level. He brought up the letters of civil war soldiers and how, despite often being written by men with very little formal schooling, they were very well written and articulate. He basically said that most of the class could not write as well as someone from 150 years ago that dropped out of school in second grade. (I got an A on it so I was fine, though.) He didn't say anything about why that was, unfortunately.

>>3059505
>>3060541
Context needs to be considered. First, what >>3060438 said. This wasn't just a random guy who didn't finish but a few years of schooling, it was someone with a highly educated background who would have specifically known how to write well because of his professions.

Second, consider the fact that the letter was saved and passed down because it was eloquently written. The reason why there is the misconception that Civil War soldiers all wrote these beautiful, eloquent poetic letters is because that's what people tended to save for posterity. It's not that everyone wrote like that, all the time, in any situation--it's that those well-written letters are the ones people saved and that historians savored. They're the best highlights.

Third, these letters which were saved were written by men who had no other means of correspondence with their loved ones, and who (especially as the war continued and they witnessed the horror of it themselves) knew that they could be dead soon. So there was often more care put into their letters compared to a letter they would have written before the war. This is especially noticeable when they were writing home to their wives or mothers or children. If you compare letters that men wrote to their brothers or sons or male friends with letters written to wives or sweethearts or daughters or sisters, there's a definite difference in how eloquent and flourished they are.

>>3060541
Because no one reads anymore.

That's it.

>>3060300
When General Burnside arrived at Fredriksburg in preparation for the retreat he saw the piles of dead Union soldiers and the wounded who slept under them to shelter from the cold. He became hysterical and broke down in tears in front of his command staff, where he proclaimed that he would personally lead the rearguard.
The other officers talked him down of course, but It's too bad modern historians think of him as a careless idiot.

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>>3061239
During the horrifically bloody Civil War battle of Fredericksburg, the Confederate Army devastated Union troops as they tried to charge the hill at Marye’s Heights, leaving wounded and dying soldiers scattered across the battlefield

Kirkland gathered all the canteens he could carry, filled them with water, then ventured out onto the battlefield. He ventured back and forth several times, giving the wounded Union soldiers water, warm clothing, and blankets. Soldiers from both the Union and Confederate armies watched as he performed his task, but no one fired a shot.

Kirkland went on to fight at the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Chickamauga. At the last of these, he and two comrades advanced too far in front of their unit, and he was mortally wounded while trying to cover their retreat. Refusing his friends’ offers to assist him, he gasped: “I am done for. You can do me no good. Save yourselves and please tell my pa I died right.” Kirkland was barely 20 years old.

>>3055517

they deadass just made shit up didn't they

>>3058337

>tfw he was actually based and would have confounded the eternal Teuton's desire for ww1

Franz pls save

>>3059505

we've got a wealth of letters and the like from this period, and it becomes evident that even people who never went to a real school were eloquent and literate. Also only the good ones are still preserved so that might be skewing the data a bit in favour of all correspondence being very good. I think if you were smart enough to write letters back then you wrote some patrician tier stuff, and that a letter (especially home to someone from the US civil war) was a BIG deal back in the day, so you'd craft this incredible paean to home and family that might take a month to write and go for 6 pages.


Mass literacy (obviously a great thing) has likely devalued old fashioned writing, and reading for pleasure (cures brainletism) now that everyone can do it, few do it as well as it should be done, and the fact that we can talk on the phone or through instant messaging in our fucking pockets from someone on the other side of the earth any time we want (also amazing) and also that travel is so much faster and easier that you can be in front of someone before mail would reach them, it's sadly a lost art. But it's an art we can bring back anytime we like too, write and send someone letter they'll be blown away. getting that kind of mail is pretty much unheard of for most people.

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>>3055865
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNfBdzpG6L4
I encourage everyone to listen to this if you already haven't.

>>3058186
Fuck.

>>3061687
our literacy rates are lower now than in the mid 19th century

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>>3058269
>>3060407
made me feel

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;_;

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For you, its just another WWII moment, but for me and my country, this is the decisive and worst moment in history.

>one of most industrialized countries
>deep democratic roots (only democratic country east of rhine)
>proud and willing people

>sold out to Hitler by the people who we trusted the most
>sold out to evil without getting any chance to fire one shot back, because then we would be marked as the aggressors
>proud nation willing to defend itself was by international pressure forced to become Hitler's slaves

>after the war was over we were in between West and East and had a choice
>we didn't trust West anymore so we chose East
>because of that distrust, we voted to become commie and fucked ourselves over for the next 50 years

Because of this one moment, we lost all our national pride, our hope, our economy and our future.

>>3062021
Bit of a brainlet are you Czech/Slovak or Polish

>>3062071
Not him but either Czech or Slovak, not Polish of course

Read up the Munich agreement if you're interested

>>3058264
You can thank Džugašvili for forcing the civilian population to stay in Peter.

Cannibalism caused by famine was a mainstay of communist rule; frequent happening in Bolshevik concentration camps, especially in the Far East during 30's, happened at least in Volga region during 1919 and 1921 famines, in Ukraine during the hunger-genocide of 1932; during Great Leap Forward in Mainland China; In North Korea during the early 90's famine.
Also Chinese communists ate (or forced other to eat) childred of 'bourgeoise' as retaliation.

Siege of Leningrad was nothing compared to what the Bolsheviks had already endured on Russian muzhik and on the other Soviet 'citizens'. Finns even kept a corridor open for evacuating civilians, but Chekists forbade any such evacuation.

>>3062021
>voted

>>3062071
I am Czech and please elaborate on what is wrong with that, since i am very interested about what can you teach me about my country

>>3062242
We literally did in 46th

>>3062021
top kek

>non nation created by antant
>cowardly not even trying to defend itself
>cries MUH NAZI OPPRESSION, collaborate on a massive scale to a point where czechs are drafted into the wehmacth
>slow-aki is just a straight fascist puppet state
>LEGALLY elect communists
>suprised it sucks
>blame everyone around themselfs for their own retardation

The Spanish Civil war.

>>3062245
There's nothing wrong with it, I didn't say there was? Was just wondering what country

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>>3062247
you're trying too hard dude

>>3062280
oh right, that brainlet was about you, not about me

It was about Czechoslovakia, who was forced to give their whole massive defenses to Hitler (who they were built against)

>>3062240
Are you really trying to pin the results of a German military action resulting from an unprovoked German invasion and campaign of genocide as not being the fault of the Germans?

>>3062240
That's horrible.

>>3062021
The Munich Betrayal is the most terrible stain upon Anglo civilization. We trusted the Teuton. I'm so sorry.

>>3062879
Well, treatcherous frogs were the ones who had a direct deal with us about guaranteeing our borders.

>>3055811
Holy shit how did that happen? No sight, no orientation, too much snow tp reach the house?

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As the battleship Bismarck neared completion in 1940, her neighbor on the Blohm & Voss slipways was the Type VIIC U-556. When U-556 launched, Bismarck lent her marching band to celebrate the occasion. In gratitude, the sub commander presented Bismarck's captain with pic related.

>We, U-556 (500 tons), hereby declare before Neptune, Lord over oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, brooks, ponds, and rivulets, that we will provide any desired assistance to our Big Brother, the battleship Bismarck (42,000 tons), at any place on the water, under water, on land, or in the air.
Hamburg, 28 January 1941
Commander & Crew U556

The cartoons depict U-556 defending Bismarck from aerial torpedo attack and towing her to safety.

On May 26, 1941, Bismarck, her North Atlantic breakout thwarted, was fleeing south for the safety of the French Coast. Though wounded by naval gunfire and air attack, she was still mobile, and had broken contact with the British pursuit force.

Both admiralties scrambled to save or sink the Bismarck. On the British side, Force H - the battlecruiser HMS Renown and the carrier Ark Royal - sortied from Gibraltar to cut off Bismarck's line of retreat. The Kriegsmarine had one vessel in the area: U-556, Bismarck's sworn protector, returning from her maiden patrol.

By chance, U-556's course intersected Force H's northward approach. The submarine commander was astonished to find Ark Royal and Renown alone - desperate to avenge HMS Hood, the British capital ships had outrun their escorts in order to gain position. Ark Royal, the last obstacle between Bismarck and safety, was defenseless in U-556's sights.

But U-556's magazine was empty. She could do only watch as the carrier's air wing left the deck on the fatal run.

On the horizon, Bismarck's guns flashed against the failing light. U-556 lost track of her big brother in the dark. She did not hear Bismarck's final transmission: "Ship unmaneuverable. We will fight to the last shell. Long live the Fuhrer."

>>3063069
a shame how many brave men died because of these Nazi bastards

>>3062021
>czechoslovakia please

did you lose two-third of your country too?

>>3063069
and this gives you feels?
longwinded and too detailed

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>>3061239

Shame he didn't. Would've at least showed he was willing to risk himself.

Burnside's plan for the Crater was brilliant, but Meade's autistic racism derailed the entire operation. The war lasted a year longer and hundreds of thousands died because of it too.

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>>3063069

Fun Fact: Adm. Lutjens was Jewish, as was his wife. He only kept his commission (and his head) through the intervention of Dönitz.

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"Lafayette, we are here!"

>>3061720
Bullshit. At least 20% of the population couldn't read, and that's just the black population.

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>Badly mishandled. Nose broken at last interrogation. My time is up. Was not a traitor. Did my duty as a German. If you survive, please tell my wife. I die for my fatherland. I have a clear conscience. I only did my duty to my country when I tried to oppose the criminal folly of Hitler....

Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, former head of the Abwehr's final tapped morse code message to his Danish cell neighbor before he was dragged out, stripped naked and hung on a meathook, April 5th 1945

>>3065983
April 9th*

>>3065983
Did he get SOVIET'd or was that in a western camp

>>3065963
And they still can't read.

>>3065989
He was arrested by the Gestapo following the July 20th plot. He had spent the war sabotaging the Nazis from within. From persuading Franco not to let Hitler move troops through Spain to take Gibraltar, to letting his spy network be turned by the British, to plotting Hitler's assassination.

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KMS Scharnhorst was cornered by the fast battleship HMS Duke of York, a cruiser, three light cruisers and nine destroyers. Blinded by a snowstorm, and a lucking hit to the radar dish from days prior, Scharnhorst returned the attack. It took twelve hours, 52 salvos and four direct torpedo hits to capsize the Scharnhorst. Scharnhorst rolled, still firing every gun that worked. Of the 1,968 men on Scharnhorst, only 36 survived.

>"Gentlemen, the battle against Scharnhorst has ended in victory for us. I hope that if any of you are ever called upon to lead a ship into action against an opponent many times superior, you will command your ship as gallantly as Scharnhorst was commanded today." -Admiral Bruce Fraser upon the mission debriefing.

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>German released from Soviet captivity in 1948

>>3065963
Sort of. The 20% wasn't "just" the black population, it included all adults. In 1870, 20% of the adult population was illiterate. Of that percentage, 11.5% of the illiterate people were white and the rest were black. So the primary illiterate population at the time were black people, for obvious reasons as many of them lived in places where they were not legally allowed to learn to read or write.

Now it's about 14% illiteracy, and almost 50/50 in terms of black or white.

>>3066068
I see. Thanks for the info anon

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1INaeku36L4
This fucking video. For context the old man is a vietnamese navy officer, Saigon had just fallen and he'd basically had everything taken away from him. The video wrecks me every time

“Why do you weep? Did you think I was immortal?"
-Louis XIV last words

>>3062933
all.
To this day, in many parts of the rural midwest, you will see a cable or rope running from the door to the garage and/or barn. You grab hold of it and don't let go until you've reached your destination. Though the trip is short, if you lose your way in white out conditions, you can die a stone's throw from your house completely lost in the snow.

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>Read the excellent book Fortress Malta by James Holland
>Interweaves the stories of many people, soldiers, sailors, pilots, important officials and common civilians.
>One sticks out: Adrian Warburton
>Yank, so unfamiliar with "Warby" and the RAF in WWII.
>Plucky little cunt is all balls and no brain
>Can barely land a fucking plane
>Excels at reconnaissance somehow
>Plane gets chewed up with flak while photographing Axis battleship in Sicily
>Co-pilot shits himself when Warby makes a second pass
>He thought he could get better photos
>Shoots down enough pursuing fighters to become an ace
>An ace
>In a recon plane
>Siege of Malta wears on
>Disease
>Bombing
>Starvation
>When the book gets too solemn, the author brings up another "Warby does something else hilariously fucking bonkers" episode
>Favorite guy in the book
>Last chapter, get to see how everyone turned out
>The Maltese nurse that volunteered for duty in Italy
>The intrepid submarine captain that lived out a long, content life with his native sweetheart
>Finally get to Warby

>MFW he died in '44.

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>>3065983
>>3066016
he was a hero, just like this guy

>Johann Georg Elser (4 January 1903 – 9 April 1945) was a German worker who planned and carried out an elaborate assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazi leaders on 8 November 1939 at the Bürgerbräukeller in Munich.[1] A time bomb that Elser constructed and placed near the speaking platform failed to kill Hitler, who left earlier than expected, but killed eight people and injured over sixty-two others.

>On 9 April 1945, four weeks before the end of the war in Europe, Georg Elser was shot dead and his fully dressed body immediately burned in the crematorium of Dachau Concentration Camp.[2] He was 42 years old.

I fucking hate the Nazis

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>>3065989
German camp, he was one of the very few brave members of the German resistance like pic related

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>>3058236
Communists aren't people, dude was a hippie faggot.

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>>3066341
whatever, he saved civilians therefore I consider him a hero

>>3066341
>village is merely suspected of having NLF insurgents
>therefore may as well off the lot of them

I mean may as well make North Vietnam's job easier and entirely depopulate south Vietnam, yeah?

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>>3066345
He was tasked with providing CAS to those troops on the ground, what he did instead was abandon his post and endanger the lives of his fellow Americans for what was, in all likelihood, a VC sympathetic village. In a better world he would be put up against a wall and shot. He ordered his crew to use lethal force against friendly forces, he disregarded his mission and endangered the lives of his crew. For what? A few gooks.

>>3066366
What you are talking about is a massacre on defenseless civilians, one doesn't have to be a fucking communist to see that.
Easier to end a life than to save one.

>>3066366
>"In a better world..."
If you can't deal with conditions as they are, you've really got no leg to stand on when commenting on military matters, do you?
You're justifying an abject pr disaster, the worst sort of disaster in a counter-insurgency campaign, on the grounds that the world does not conform to your standards.

>>3066366
Thompson should have gunned down that entire unit of subhuman vermin, it would have been more justice then what the courts gave them.

Not sure why you're defending a stain on the history and honor of the US Army.

>>3055553
Fuck.

>>3058236
Neat, world needs more ppl like him.

>>3055865
Ken Burns pls stay.

>>3066341
edgy faggot

>>3055539
>>3055559
>>3061650
The Brits are notorious propagandists. This sounds like the same stuff as with that nurse in WWI, whom they claimed was executed by the Germans while unconscious, and that the execution itself was unjust. It wasn't, she was a legit spy, and the Brits themselves executed two German nurses around the same time for the same reasons, and the Germans considered it just and didn't raise a fuss.

Frankly, I have a hard time trusting claims like these.

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>>3054680
Poniatowski's death at Leipzig was pretty sad.

> As a reward for his services, on 16 October during the Battle of Leipzig, Poniatowski was made a Marshal of France and entrusted with the duty of covering the French Army's retreat.[2] He defended Leipzig, losing half his corps in the attempt, finally falling back slowly upon a bridge over the Weisse Elster River, near Leipzig. In the general confusion, the French blew up the bridge before he could reach it. Poniatowski tried to escape across the Elstermühlgraben at modern Gottschedstrasse 42, but, covered with wounds, drowned in the river.

I wonder what he felt when he saw the bridge blow up.

>get heavily injured covering Napoleon's retreat from Russia
>spend two months recovering and rebuilding Polish forces in Warsaw
>Tsar offers you amnesty and command in Russian army
>refuse, take the 20,000 Polish forces you scraped together and rush to the Emperor's aid
>Napoleon promotes you to Imperial Marshal and makes you cover his retreat from Leipzig
>you manage to cover their crossing but panicking French blow up the bridge before you can retreat
>your trapped forces get slaughtered and you get shot and drown in the river

Also Karl Philipp of Schwarzenberg (the Austrian commander at Leipzig) was a friend of his whose life he saved when they fighting Turks a quarter of a century earlier.

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>Fortino Samano was a rebel of the Zapata forces during the Mexican Revolution. Here he stands moments before his execution, smoking his last cigar, calm and with a smile, facing the firing squad.

It's incredible how cool he seems, and he's about to die and he knows it.

A greek musician made a song especially for this photo.

>>3066564
Not a bad end for a spoiled, runty playboy.

>>3066519
>the Brits themselves executed two German nurses around the same time for the same reasons, and the Germans considered it just and didn't raise a fuss.

well their king was related to the Kaiser, fucking Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.... sorry """""""""windsor"""""""""""" they probably thought the brits were just embracing the Teutonic culture

>>3066341
>Communists aren't people, dude was a hippie faggot.
DUDE YOU ARE SO HARDCORE

Did your Jewish banking masters give you extra shekels for supporting their Capitalist ventures with pro-death propaganda?

>>3066564

did Napoleon make great every man that served under him? Or did his own greatness simply attract men who were already great? nearly everyone involved with him seemed to be so fucking based

In the year of Lettow-Vorbeck's death, 1964, the West German Bundestag voted to give back-dated pay to all surviving Askaris from the German forces of the First World War. A temporary cashier's office was set up in Mwanza on Lake Victoria. Of the 350 old soldiers who gathered, only a handful could produce the certificates that Lettow-Vorbeck had given them in 1918. Others presented pieces of their old uniforms as proof of service. The German banker who had brought the money had an idea: asked each claimant to step forward, was handed a broom and ordered in German to perform the manual of arms. Not one man failed the test.

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>>3067090
fuck off to /pol/ if that gives you feels, the only thing remotely sad about this is that they killed their indoctrinated children who never got to grow up in a normal environment.

Nazis like the Göbbels family deserved everything they got and much worse.

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French shells began to hit to the right and left of us, leaving human forms writhing in agony. Our advance came to a stop and after hesitating a few minutes we drew back while the artillery fire followed us, ripping large gashes in our formation. Soon the French drumfire engulfed us, and the air was filled with gas and flying pieces of steel. We automatically mounted the machine gun for action. Then like animals we burrowed into the earth as if trying to find protection deep in its bosom. Something struck my back where I carried my gas mask, but I did not pay attention to it. A steel splinter broke the handle of my spade and another knocked the remains out of my hand. I kept digging with my bare hands, ducking my head every time a shell exploded nearby.

A boy to my side was hit in the arm and cried out for help. I crawled over to him, ripped the sleeves of his coat and shirt open and started to bind the bleeding part. The gas was so thick now I could hardly discern what I was doing. My eyes began to water and I felt as if I would choke. I reached for my gas mask, pulled it out of its container - then noticed to my horror that a splinter had gone through it leaving a large hole.

I had seen death thousands of times, stared it in the face, but never experienced the fear I felt then. Immediately I reverted to the primitive. I felt like an animal cornered by hunters. With the spirit of self-preservation uppermost, my eyes fell upon the boy whose arm I had bandaged. Somehow he had managed to put the gas mask on his head with his one good arm. I leapt at him and in the next moment had ripped the gas mask from his face. With a feeble gesture he tried to wrench it from my grasp, then fell back exhausted.

The last thing I saw before putting on the mask was his pleading eyes.

-Corporal Frederick Meisel, 371st Infantry Regiment, 43rd Ersatz Brigade, 10th Ersatz Division, Germany Army, Kaiserschlacht 1918

>>3067142
>haha fucking children deserved it!!!!!!!

>>3067142
>waaaaah stop fucking feeling bad you just fucking can't I'm LITERALLY fucking shaking
Fuck off redditor

>>3067151
not what I said, read again

posting that sentimental letter from the second highest ranking Nazi's fanatical wife and implying that their death was sad or tragic is affronting considering how many innocent people died of these guys (not the children of course)

>>3067157
these people (except the children) absolutely deserved to die.

>>3067170
*because of these guys

>>3067170
Nobody in history deserved to die because morality is a spook

>>3061720
Lmao no they aren't we just cant write as well

>>3066285
>You know what Elser’s problem was? This man of the people loved ordinary people; he laid out for me passionately and in simple sentences how, for the masses in all countries, war means hunger, misery, and the death of millions. Not a pacifist in the usual sense, his reasoning was quite simplistic: Hitler is war—and if he goes, there will be peace

>t. the Police chief in charge of investigating him

>>3067175
if you feel that way, fine.
I'm normally also against death penalty and the like but I think with these top ranking Nazis there's no question.

>>3067181
It's unfortunate only few people know about him, to me he is a great national hero who martyred for my country.

>>3057627
Fuck you; they were heroes; all of em'

In a time and age where they were not expected to be more than passive civilians.

So fucking what if they are women; we'd remember them too if they were men you retarded autistic son of a bitch

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>Hurry up, we're waiting for you.
>It's not about Berlin anymore. It's not about the Reich anymore.

I will black out the names to avoid pointless arguments. I will also skip some parts as it is way too long

>Since my letter of yesterday I have supped full of horrors. Nothing has as yet been said of the ***** that I do not now believe; nothing could be said of them that I should not think probable and likely. There is, it seems, a point in atrocity beyond which discrimination is impossible, when mere comparison, calculation, measurement are out of the question, and this point the ***** have already passed. You can follow them no further.
---
The fields were is deserted as the little valley, and the harvest was rotting in the soil. In an hour we had neared the village. I observed nothing peculiar as we mounted until my horse stumbled, when looking down I perceived he had stepped on a human skull partly hid among the grass. It was quite hard and dry, and might, to all appearances, have been there two or three years, so well had the dogs done their work. A few steps further there was another and part of a skeleton, likewise, white and dry. As we ascended, bones, skulls, and skeletons became more frequent, but here they had not been picked so clean, for there were fragments of half dry, half putrid flesh attached to them. At last we came to a little plateau or shelf on the hillside, where the ground was nearly level, with the exception of a little indentation, where the head of a hollow broke through. We rode toward this with the intention of crossing it, but all suddenly drew reign with an exclamation of horror, for right before us, almost beneath our horses' feet, was a sight that made us shudder. It was a heap of skulls, intermingled with bones from all parts of the human body, skeletons nearly entire and rotting, clothing, human hair and putrid flesh lying there in one foul heap, around which the grass was growing luxuriantly.

cont.

>>3067575
>In the midst of this heap, I could distinguish the slight skeleton form, still enclosed in a chemise, the skull wrapped about with a coloured handkerchief, and the bony ankles encased in the embroidered footless stockings worn by ***** girls. We looked about us. The ground was strewed with bones in every direction, where the dogs had carried them off to gnaw them at their leisure. At the distance of a hundred yards beneath us lay the town. As seen from our standpoint, it reminded one somewhat of the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii . There was not a roof left, not a whole wall standing. We looked again at the heap of skulls and skeletons before us, and we observed that they were all small and that the articles of clothing intermingled with them and lying about were all women's apparel. These, then, were all women and girls a hundred of them. The skulls were nearly all separated from the rest of the bones - the skeletons were nearly all headless. These women had all been beheaded. We descended into the town. Within the shattered walls of the first house we came to was a woman sitting upon a heap of rubbish rocking herself to and fro, wailing a kind of monotonous chant, half sung, half sobbed, that was not without a wild discordant melody. In her lap she held a babe, and another child sat beside her patiently and silently, and looked at us as we passed with wondering eyes. She paid no attention to us, but we bent our ear to hear what she was saying, and our interpreter said it was as follows: “My home, my home, my poor home, my sweet home; my husband, my husband, my dear husband, my poor husband; my home, my sweet home,” and so on, repeating the same words over again a thousand times.

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>>3067578
>We entered the churchyard, but the odour here became so bad that it was almost impossible to proceed. We take a handful of tobacco, and hold it to our noses while we continue our investigation. At first we perceive nothing in particular, and the stench was so great that we scarcely care to look about us, but we see that the place is heaped up with stones and rubbish to the height of five or six feet above the level of the street, and upon inspection we discover that what appeared to be a mass of stones and rubbish is in reality an immense heap of human bodies covered over with a thin layer of stones.

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>>3067586
>The whole of the little churchyard is heaped up with them to the depth of three or four feet, and it is from here that the fearful odour comes. We were told there were three thousand people lying here in this little churchyard alone, and we could well believe it. It was a fearful sight — a sight to haunt one through life. There were little curly heads there in that festering mass, crushed down by heavy stones; little feet not as long as your finger on which the flesh was dried hard, by the ardent heat before it had time to decompose; little baby hands stretched out as if for help; babes that had died wondering at the bright gleam of sabres and the red hands of the fierce-eyed men who wielded them; children who had died shrinking with fright and terror; young girls who had died weeping and sobbing and begging for mercy; mothers who died trying to shield their little ones with their own weak bodies, all lying there together, festering in one horrid mass. They are silent enough now. There are no tears nor cries, no weeping, no shrieks of terror, nor prayers for mercy.We looked into the church what we saw there was too frightful for more than a hasty glance. An immense number of bodies had been partly burnt there and the charred and blackened remains, that seemed to fill it half way up to the low dark arches and make them lower and darker still, were lying in a state of putrefaction too frightful to look upon. Everywhere horrors upon horrors.
The Daily News, August 22, 1876

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>>3054790
"What use is there in my becoming a companion to you? On the contrary, sworn brother, in the black night I would haunt your dreams, in the bright day I would trouble your heart. I would be the louse in your collar, I would become the splinter in your door-panel... as there was room for only one sun in the sky, there was room only for one Mongol lord."
— Jamukha, The Secret History of the Mongols

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>>3066285

>literally could've whacked the entire leadership of the NSDAP Inglorious Bastards-style
>missed Hitler by less than 15 minutes
>executed mere weeks before the fall of Nazi Germany

Time was not this man's friend.

The only other race against time I've heard of that close was the Battle of Little Round Top where the 20th Maine beat the 15th Alabama to the top of the hill by less than 10 minutes.

>>3066923
They were total bros with Murat for a reason.

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>>3062247
>Czech
>Non nation
>Mfw motherfucking Bohemia (czechia) had a national Identity before France had developed it's own and went to war to preserve it.

>>3067594
>>3067575
>>3067578
>>3067586

Which conflict? I'm guessing the Ottoman crackdown of Bulgarian uprisings.

>>3058251
Whose this?

>>3058269

>"Now she's like the others."

Shit, that cuts deep.

>>3068288
Walther Weck, a German general who was ordered by Hitler to save Berlin but obviously his forces were too weak.

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>>3068350
btw, there are German officers who should make one feel far more than someone like Wenck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Oster

>>3065817

Charles E. Stanton uttered those words, not Pershing.

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>Thucydides' Peloponnesian war 7.84.2-5
>[2] The Athenians pushed on for the Assinarus, impelled by the attacks made upon them from every side by a numerous cavalry and the swarm of other arms, fancying that they should breathe more freely if once across the river, and driven on also by their exhaustion and craving for water.
>[3] Once there they rushed in, and all order was at an end, each man wanting to cross first, and the attacks of the enemy making it difficult to cross at all; forced to huddle together, they fell against and trod down one another, some dying immediately upon the javelins, others getting entangled together and stumbling over the articles of baggage, without being able to rise again.
>Meanwhile the opposite bank, which was steep, was lined by the Syracusans, who showered missiles down upon the Athenians, most of them drinking greedily and heaped together in disorder in the hollow bed of the river.
[5] The Peloponnesians also came down and butchered them, especially those in the water, which was thus immediately spoiled, but which they went on drinking just the same, mud and all, bloody as it was, most even fighting to have it.

>>3066519
The witness wasn't British.

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>>3066519
nuh-uh

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Colonel Archibald Gracie was a Titanic survivor who was one of the men who lived through the night partially submerged on the overturned collapsible lifeboat. After the disaster, he spent months corresponding with other survivors in order to compile testimony and evidence for a book about the sinking. One of the most memorable parts from his book was his own eyewitness testimony of seeing a "mass of humanity" come from the steerage class only after most of the lifeboats were already gone.

His health never recovered from the hypothermia and physical shock of the sinking, and he died in December of 1912. His family recorded his last words, which he spoke in a delirium:

>We must get them into the boats. We must get them all into the boats

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>Marine after being pulled out of Okinawa

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b-17 is left defenseless after a bombing raid over Berlin. Luftwaffe has instructed a bf110 pilot to intercept it and film an in air experiment on the plane. Picking it apart slowly to figure out where the weak points were located.

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>>3069304
they'd be killing each other a year and a half later.

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A girl meets her father for the first time following the last prisoner transfer in the mid 1950's. The last time they were together, she was just born.

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film of the Fall of France.

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>>3069318
they were so close :'(

>>3069338

it would have been a beautiful world if Hitler didn't start shit and Stalin didn't act like a shifty motherfucker.

>>3068350
Actually the feels come more from the fact thag he ignored his orders, which were to keep fighting the soviets (ie, absurd at that point) and chose to evacuate civilians instead.

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>>3069360

>>3067101
Gets me every time

>>3069357
Well that's understandable.

>>3065817
but wasnt that line Charles Stanton's?

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Bocage was a death trap.

>>3062021
I like Mussolini's facial expression here.
>Really Hitler? You shat yourself again

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Free French forces scraping the dead out of a
Sherman.

Whoever put a watermark on this deserves to go to hell.

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Squad photograph moments after one of them dies of his injuries in the arms of his commander.

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>>3069399

Not sure if this counts since it's a family story.

My great-granddad was active in the (pro-Western) Polish resistance but wouldn't let his teenage son join because his only other son died in the German invasion back in 1939. He later found out the son was secretly trying to join the (much smaller) pro-Soviet resistance.

He gave his son hell for wanting to join commies, but the lad said he wanted to fight Germans and didn't care whom he joined to do it. So great-granddad relented and let him join the pro-Western resistance.

Soon after the Warsaw uprising started, the pro-Western resistance went into the streets to fight the Germans while the pro-Soviet resistance fled the area to join the Soviets. Great-granddad's son died in the first few days of the fighting.

Grandma said her father never recovered from grief.

>>3063869
the drawing is very cute tho

>>3058337
REEEEEEEEEEEE SERBS WHY WHY! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The wave of suicides among the Poles under British command (most of whom were from Eastern Poland) after Churchill agreed to let the Soviet Union annex Eastern Poland at Yalta.

Monty scapegoating Sosabowski for the failure of Market-Garden.

The British government withdrawing their recognition of the London-based Polish government-in-exile because Stalin asked for it.

The British government forcing London-based Polish politicians to go to Moscow to negotiate the future of Poland and saying their guarantee their safety, then doing nothing as they get arrested and put on show trials.

The British government excluding the Poles (200,000 of whom served under their command) from the London Victory Celebrations after WW2 ended because Stalin asked for it.

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Soviet graffiti in the Reichstag.

>>3057948
I'm not a communist but this shit makes me wish they all rose up together against their governments

>>3067147

That is fucked. I can't imagine going through something as traumatic as this.

>>3066214
Excerpt from the book:

Adrian Warburton also decided to join in the action. On July 14 he was carrying out a reconnaissance of Catania, in Sicily. There was quite a lot of cloud cover, so he dropped down low to take oblique rather than high-altitude photographs. As he approached, he realized he'd been given the green light signal to land by the airfield controller. Clearly, he had been mistaken for an Italian. Instead of turning away, he put down his wheels and approached the runway.
Johnny Spires, one of his crewman yelled at him, "What the hell do you think you're doing? This is Catania, not Luqa!"
"I know," said Warby calmly, then began shooting at all the planes he could see lined up on the ground.

>>3063069
>I-I'll protect you, Bismarck-chan

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>>3058257
Maximiliano died shouting :viva Mexico !

>>3069449
I'd need to know more context of the fighting to know whether the pro-Soviet forces were cowards or not but to me it'd make much more sense to join the Soviets if their front line was close anyways than instead fighting an unwinnable battle and at most disrupting German troop movements.

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>Caesius faithfully loves M[... name lost]
I dont know why, but this always makes me damn near tear up every fucking time

>>3070136
The context is very interesting.

The point of the uprising (which was all along the front, not just in Warsaw) was to take some degree of tenuous control of key areas ahead of the Soviets getting there so that the Soviets end up arriving to aid a fighting ally rather than just walk into the territory as conquerors.

As to where to Soviets were - they were right across the river watching the fighting, the uprising was triggered when they arrived. But they immediately got direct orders from Kremlin to stop and not aid the Poles. The Soviet advance on the Vistula front was stopped completely for several months as they waited for the Polish forces to burn down. Then they came in and finished off both the Germans and the Poles (the communists would end up hunting down the last of pro-Western Polish partisans well into the 1950s).

When the Western allies (Churchill in particular) confronted the Soviets about not aiding the pro-Western Polish partisans despite being within sight of them the entire time, Stalin claimed they have fought but have suffered a major reverse which was being kept secret for strategic reasons (long story short, this was completely made up).

>>3069677
It boggles my mind how the Nazis could claim the Jews were backstabbers when clearly the Nazis were the ones commiting treason against their own people.

>>3070671
>>3069677

The Nazis had a priority list on German Jews. Those that fought for Germany were lowest on that list.

>>3070682
Eventually they were taken away as well...

>>3069410
>all those looks of worried pain
Fuck

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War is truly a despicable thing.

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>>3070734
>>3070671

t. Goyim

>>3071296
sources besides the depths of your anus and kikethreat.com ?

>>3071296
>Germany has no history of genocidal behavior
Herero War.

>>3060462
>ayo i popped some untermenschen niggas i ran outta caps we wuz vikangz an shiet
Yeah no.

>>3071509
Get that you think this doesn't belong in a feels thread because he was a Nazi (not my post either) but he still was a brave soldier who died for his country and possibly saved civilian lives.

>>3067170
>he cant grasp the emotional gravity of these situations because the people were on the side he doesnt like

Why do you bother with these threads? Nobody is denying the atrocities of the era, its just interesting to see the depth of thought and emotion that these people had when many people otherwise only remembers them as figureheads. In case you havent noticed this thread is not about morality or which side was right or wrong.

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>>3071540
fair enough

>The Battle for Castle Itter in the Austrian North Tyrol village of Itter was fought on May 5, 1945, in the last days of the European Theater of World War II.

>Troops of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps led by Captain John C. "Jack" Lee, Jr., a number of Wehrmacht soldiers, a Waffen SS officer who defected, and recently freed French POWs defended Castle Itter against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division until relief from the American 142nd Infantry Regiment of the 36th Division of XXI Corps arrived.

>The French prisoners included former prime ministers, generals and a tennis star. It may have been the only battle in the war in which Americans and Germans fought side-by-side. Popular accounts of the battle have called it the "strangest" battle of World War II.[2]

>>3071540
>Nobody is denying the atrocities of the era
Your post came five posts after someone denying the atrocities of the era.

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>>3070289
Thanks for giving context. From a tactical perspective I would assume the uprising would've been the perfect time to advance amidst the chaos. Apparently the Soviets didn't think so. I guess it was maybe the right choice for the Soviets seeing as anti-communist partisans would've more trouble than they're worth to them while they're continuing the advance towards Germany.

I feel as if the Eastern Front of WW2 was almost post-apocalypic like to the civilian populations. Two large armies fighting each other while the presumably mostly unoccupied countryside was pure anarchy. Kind of reminds me of Fallout: New Vegas.

>>3067142
Ow the edge

>>3070734
The bankers certainly.
Veterans? hardly.

>>3070682
>An estimated 100,000German Jewish military personnelserved in theGerman ArmyduringWorld War I, of whom 12,000 were killed in action. TheIron Crosswas awarded to 18,000 German Jews during the war.[1]

Hmm....

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For when your wife and your mother die on the same day
Teddy Roosevelt

>>3071776
do you have a source for that?
I've heard some Jews were helped by people like Canaris but I don't think Veterans were spared...

>>3066366 this sums up why america is so shit at counter insurgency. Because spastics like you might be given a gun

>>3069316
Did I see parachutes from the crew bailing out or was it all debris?

>>3067501
reddit: the post>>3067553

>>3072003
debris

>>3071806
That's the point of the post. The Nazis were reluctant to persecute these Jews and they were generally the last ones that bore the brunt of the policies.

>>3058269
Haven't been that close to crying in years.

>>3072047
I apologize, I read it as only those non-Jewish who fought for Germany were the lowest on the list.

>>3066621
What a way to go

>>3071509

Dude spent basically his entire career combating what is basically the largest scale unpunished warcrime in modern history. Fuck right off buddy.

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>>3066564
>In the general confusion, the French blew up the bridge before he could reach it
Not saying that this guy's death wasn't sad but this made me laugh more than anything.

>>3069648
What the absolute madman

>>3071296
>dude this post on 4chan disproves everything else

>>3072012
The picture in that post really inflates my autism, because it's a drawing of a German soldier in a British trench. I hate it.

>>3067060

being able to spot talent in people so you can promote them to critical positions and then delegate to them is one of the most important skills of a great leader