It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.

Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.

Thank you.

 

Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.

 

World War II’s Strangest Battle: When Americans and Germans Fought Together

page: 2
25
<< 1   >>

log in

join
share:

posted on May, 14 2013 @ 12:21 AM
link   
reply to post by Merinda
 

Watch Enemy at the gates



posted on May, 14 2013 @ 04:04 AM
link   

Originally posted by Slugworth

Steven Spielberg, how did you miss this story?

He's only interested in Jew and U.S. histrionics.



posted on May, 14 2013 @ 04:08 AM
link   

Originally posted by Slugworth
Were the SS actually "crack troops" as the article describes them, or were they given those shiny uniforms simply based on loyalty? They are always depicted as these fearsome guys but that was before learning that they lost, with superior numbers, to a few soldiers augmented by french politicians and their wives. I wonder if they were only feared because they had authority within their own military, but were in fact only average or below-average soldiers when it came to actual fighting. They are often described as "elite" soldiers, but in a system obsessed with loyalty and racial purity, were they elite in their fighting skills or just their loyalty and racial background?
edit on 5/13/2013 by Slugworth because: type


The SS started off as special police units and an elite "palace guard" functionary for the Nazi leadership. As usual, there were different ideas on who / what they were and what they were supposed to be doing depending on which Nazi leader was involved.

Hitler saw them as his personal body guard and shock troops, more in sync w/ his ideals and even had them all swear loyalty oaths to him vs the State at one point.

Himmler saw the SS as his own personal para-military force and brought his own ideas about the occult and German historic knighthood in the uniforms, ceremonies and even awards for valor, loyalty, etc.

In reality, the SS was a force of thugs, selected for "racial purity" and used to do the dirty jobs the Nazi's were concerned normal, sane soldiers would refuse to do. The Waffen-SS, the military version started off as 3 divisions mostly converted from the original police units, ending up with 30 something divisions total. SS officers commanded the death camps and the divisions were often sent on Hitler's pet projects to serve as local muscle and keep the other, mostly non-Nazi military in line. (Luftwaffe pilots, as an example were not allowed to be members of the Nazi party by German law though this was not always enforced).

The SS were not "better" fighters, they just tended to be better equipped and more fanatical. SS troops would fight to the death more often than normal troops and were usually crueler, less likely to break and retreat, etc.
edit on 14-5-2013 by ecoparity because: (no reason given)



posted on May, 14 2013 @ 05:51 AM
link   
reply to post by Dragoon01
 


Totenkopf was a unit raised to guard concentration camps, was made into a fighting division and fought on the eastern front.

As for strange allies, Japanese Americans fought Germans in Italy during WW2, In the closing weeks of the Berlin battle, French ss fought Germans in the Russian army.



posted on May, 14 2013 @ 08:52 AM
link   
Slightly off thread. It has been a hidden fact that in the early stages of the war n the Atlantic many U boat captains picked up survivers from their ships they had just torpedoed with Admiral Raedars knowledge. Hitler ordered him to tell the U boat crews to stop picking up survivers. I think a more worthy fact for the OPs title, which would surprise a lot more people, is the continued, regular meetings of American, British and German money men all the way through the 2nd world war in Switzerland. Yes all through the war when the Nazis were killing Jews, Americans, British and all the other fighters against Fascism the money men of your countries were sitting drinking coffee and having a good laugh in Switzerland.



posted on May, 14 2013 @ 12:24 PM
link   

Originally posted by ecoparity

Originally posted by Slugworth
Were the SS actually "crack troops" as the article describes them, or were they given those shiny uniforms simply based on loyalty? They are always depicted as these fearsome guys but that was before learning that they lost, with superior numbers, to a few soldiers augmented by french politicians and their wives. I wonder if they were only feared because they had authority within their own military, but were in fact only average or below-average soldiers when it came to actual fighting. They are often described as "elite" soldiers, but in a system obsessed with loyalty and racial purity, were they elite in their fighting skills or just their loyalty and racial background?
edit on 5/13/2013 by Slugworth because: type


The SS started off as special police units and an elite "palace guard" functionary for the Nazi leadership. As usual, there were different ideas on who / what they were and what they were supposed to be doing depending on which Nazi leader was involved.

Hitler saw them as his personal body guard and shock troops, more in sync w/ his ideals and even had them all swear loyalty oaths to him vs the State at one point.

Himmler saw the SS as his own personal para-military force and brought his own ideas about the occult and German historic knighthood in the uniforms, ceremonies and even awards for valor, loyalty, etc.

In reality, the SS was a force of thugs, selected for "racial purity" and used to do the dirty jobs the Nazi's were concerned normal, sane soldiers would refuse to do. The Waffen-SS, the military version started off as 3 divisions mostly converted from the original police units, ending up with 30 something divisions total. SS officers commanded the death camps and the divisions were often sent on Hitler's pet projects to serve as local muscle and keep the other, mostly non-Nazi military in line. (Luftwaffe pilots, as an example were not allowed to be members of the Nazi party by German law though this was not always enforced).

The SS were not "better" fighters, they just tended to be better equipped and more fanatical. SS troops would fight to the death more often than normal troops and were usually crueler, less likely to break and retreat, etc.
edit on 14-5-2013 by ecoparity because: (no reason given)


The SS actually had it origins in Prussia under the Prussian Monarchy. It was only after the abolition of the Monarchy that the SS became open to the highest bidder, and that bidder was the NAZI's.



posted on May, 14 2013 @ 06:24 PM
link   
reply to post by Slugworth
 


I've heard this story before and yes it is an amazing tell. An old German fellow told me the story over a beer back when I was stationed at Strassburg Kaserne.

S&F for you.



posted on May, 14 2013 @ 07:00 PM
link   
reply to post by korathin
 


The question was more about the Waffen SS and if they were really better soldiers, I skipped most of the pre-1940 history, the Sondercommando Berlin, etc. Really the history of the unit in this case only applies to try and shed light on the fact that at least half of the SS structure was made up of non military, thugs and police.

I'm not so sure on the Prussian origin stories, actually. There was a lot of mythology thrown onto these "elite units" to try and give them credibility and make them even more Aryan. A lot of those efforts were to try and give these groups a level of respect that their true origins did not support (making street thugs into Teutonic Knights, for example).

I guess to be clear, there actually were SS units who were "fighting elite" and who were feared and respected by the opposing forces. The 1st SS Division, Piper's Panzers in the Battle of the Bulge, etc. These were normally units hand assembled using chosen men though who were more often than not war veterans or former military men with a proven history of bravery under fire.

By the end of the War it really depended on where one was. The elite SS unit in front of you might be made up of Hitler Youth fanatics or might be one of those hand picked, hardened divisions who could actually fight.



posted on May, 14 2013 @ 07:19 PM
link   

Originally posted by brew8537
reply to post by Merinda
 

Watch Enemy at the gates




Most movies about the Eastern front were done outside of Hollywood with a limited budget including Enemy at the gates. Though at 90 Million its the only one I can think of, which had a significant budget.



posted on May, 14 2013 @ 11:08 PM
link   

Originally posted by dagann
reply to post by Dragoon01
 

Very good point. However, the late date of Hitler's suicide and the obvious loss of the war must have been deciding factor. It is quite known that the soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht detested the SS and saw them as for what they were,... blood thirsty sycophants eager to please their superiors at the head of their chain of command. The Wehrmacht's historical reputation as a efficient, professional and honorable army was stained by the blood of the SS. The tactics of the SS was criminal in nature and resulted in the horror inflicted upon innocent civilian populations in the regions of Germany's theater of operations.
Most of the Wehrmacht were aware many of the SS will hang for their crimes in post war deliberations and did not want their association with the SS to color their code of ethics. It is not a crime to fight for your country when called to service, but to aide in crimes will lead you down the path to the gallows at the end of hostilities.
The whole story makes sense when you consider the realities of war. Many i suppose only wanted the war to end and return to their families.



of course it depends on who wins the war as to whether you get to the gallows or get a medal.
2
edit on 14-5-2013 by orangutang because: typed answer to early within brackets



posted on May, 15 2013 @ 01:48 AM
link   
Excellent post S&F for sure! I thought I knew most of the unusual stories from WW2. My ancestors came from Germany so I am always interested in stories about the friendliness between American and German troops that sometimes surfaced.
My father was in Patton's 3rd Army (he was decorated many times) he was in the Battle of the Bulge and many other famous battles and he told my brother and I a lot of interesting stories I hope to put to paper to pass down.
He said other than the SS, nearly every German that they captured was friendly (most could speak English as it was a required course) he said they all would talk about being drafted and early on (before the horrors of the Jewish deaths was known) a lot of them thought that the USA would fight against the Soviet Union alongside Germany and was surprised that the USA and the USSR was allies!
One story that stuck in my mind was he said they had come down a hill scattered out towards a building at the bottom and they had pushed the Germans out of the area so they were pretty relaxed. When they got to the house there was a German soldier setting at a table with a MG34 (machine gun, very deadly) pointed out the window from where they had just come. He had his hands on top of his head and said 'hello' as my Dad's outfit filed into the room from the field of view my dad said it would have been a certain death if he had opened up on them! He said the SS had pulled out (retreated) and he was told to stay there and harass and slow down the enemy. When my dad asked why he didn't open fire he said he was tired of killing men that was just soldiers like himself and the leaders were too stupid to realize the war was lost! He said they fed him and joked around before sending him to the rear.
I won't watch movies (like a lot of Spielberg movies) that portray ALL Germans as NAZI'S also, as someone mentioned the German U-Boat men were very decent fellows with honor, when that crappy U-571 movie came out someone asked the producer why he made the Germans out so bad and that Das Boot was how the men actually were (in the German Navy) his stupid reply was "Das Boot was all fiction, if the majority of German U-Boat men weren't Nazi's they wouldn't have fought so hard!" (like I said, a complete idiot!).
Thanks again OP, I will be buying that book!



posted on May, 15 2013 @ 03:40 AM
link   
I watched a video concerning POW's from WWI onwards. The makers of the video claimed that Soviet and US fighters fought each other in the skies above Germany at the end of WWII. The only other reference I've so far been able to find is an amateur historian's claim that the leading air ace of WWII the Russian pilot Ivan Kozhedub had two P51's on his kills tally, however this is not borne out in his Wiki entry.

The amateur historian claimed that these dogfights were accidental but the video seemed to say, if I recall correctly, that it was part of the conflict over the dispersal of POW's.

I've not dug into too deeply to be truthful but this thread brought it to mind and I wondered if anybody had heard anything of this.



posted on May, 15 2013 @ 04:48 AM
link   
'the golden horseshoe' by Terence Robertson (pan x517) is a good book on Uboot capitan Otto Kretschmer, but the book U700 is complete crap.

As for the SS it started out as the unit 'stosstruppe Adolf Hitler' and went on from that.



posted on May, 15 2013 @ 08:43 AM
link   
reply to post by MrInquisitive
 


Er i seem to remember the huns were involved as mercenaries.



posted on May, 15 2013 @ 09:37 PM
link   

Originally posted by goldentorch
I watched a video concerning POW's from WWI onwards. The makers of the video claimed that Soviet and US fighters fought each other in the skies above Germany at the end of WWII. The only other reference I've so far been able to find is an amateur historian's claim that the leading air ace of WWII the Russian pilot Ivan Kozhedub had two P51's on his kills tally, however this is not borne out in his Wiki entry.

The amateur historian claimed that these dogfights were accidental but the video seemed to say, if I recall correctly, that it was part of the conflict over the dispersal of POW's.

I've not dug into too deeply to be truthful but this thread brought it to mind and I wondered if anybody had heard anything of this.

It is a known fact that the Soviets fired on a B-29 and forced it to land and later copied it bolt-by-bolt so they too would have a transcontinental bomber!
It was called the TU4 and Stalin proudly showed it off, one would think he would have been embarrassed by doing this is like saying "we can't design one of our own so we will steal your brains!" The copies were so close that even some bolt holes that weren't used in one area was still faithfully reproduced!
Here is the story:
www.airforcemag.com...



posted on May, 16 2013 @ 06:24 AM
link   
reply to post by wulff
 


Thanks for that, interesting read.

I can only put up a link for the video I mentioned. The relevant part to this thread is from around 8 to 15 mins and talks of an American raid to free POW's held by the Russians. A feat they were only able to carry out once as the element of surprise was then lost.

www.thegreatplanet.com...



posted on Jan, 13 2014 @ 11:23 PM
link   
reply to post by goldentorch
 


Thanks for posting the link. The link you submitted have been moved to www.watchdocumentaryfilms.com...



posted on Jan, 17 2014 @ 04:17 PM
link   
I met an ex. U Boat Commander on a supply ship anchored in Kirkwall Bay, Orkney, during the UK oil boom in the early Seventies. He was the Captain of a merchant ship,and I happened to know the Mate who had married a girl from my home town.
The ex. U Boat chap was adamant that he was no different to Allied submarine Commanders during the war and simply doing his job. The Germans had been pretty effective around Orkney by infiltrating U-42 Commanded by Otto Prien that sank the Battleship HMS Royal Oak at anchor in Scapa Flow. Prien had got his submarine into Scapa Flow past the Churchill Barriers of sunken block ships, sunk the Royal Oak and got back out again.
We spent a few hours "swinging the lamp" or talking old times, spoke at length about many things including the Italian Prisoner of War Chapel and England winning the World Cup.
Crossed paths with a little bit of history, non SS, part of Doenitz's very effective command and left with a greater understanding.
Scapa Flow, anchor near the war grave of the Royal Oak, you will never be alone, undertake a sole night watch, go on deck and check the anchor chain and experience a slight shiver for you are not alone. Rest in peace boys, rest in peace.
War, caused by politicians that don't have to undertake it.

edit on 17-1-2014 by Shuftystick because: Pour speeling







 
25
<< 1   >>

log in

join