Artfuldodger
Senior Member
I LOVE reading auto-biographies of WW2 soldiers...especially from non-US soldiers. I've read the stories written by US soldiers, Australians, British, German, and Russian.
The most interesting to me was reading the German soldier's perspective on the war. It really makes you think about life basic humanity when you read about how they were just as scared as the allied soldiers were. As youngsters we learn about "the evil enemy" but when you contemplate the average joe-blow German soldier, they were just 18-20 year old kids trying to stay alive too.
Germans were so disciplined.....but they were scared witless of being captured by the Russians.
I agree, what can the average 18-20 year old do but to fight for his president or dictator, regardless of his political outlook. Then one has to put propaganda into this young person's mindset. Make the enemy the devil and his job as a fighting Christian soldier. If the enemy is less than human, it's easier to kill him. But when fighting evil sometimes this is necessary. Sometimes it is just political.
Somewhat related, I was reading about the US soldiers liberating the concentration camps in Germany. They were so mad and upset with what they saw that they rounded up the local towns people to view the camps. To see the death and corpses. Perhaps to feel shame, who knows.
Most of these viewers, to include women and children, said; what could we have done?
Maybe to a certain extent, they were victims of Hitler too. Maybe most of the young German soldiers were victims of Hitler as well.
That's one of the terrible aspects of war, two young groups of soldiers fighting for the ideologies of the few. Especially when the few are evil and most of their countrymen are oppressed.