We Were Not A Mechanized Army We Went Into Russia On Foot

[@WorldWar2Stories]

Here is the full playlist: kzbin.info/aero/PLyuEmb1VavZAVYcenOHk2T5y-eLjKiQGR

[@dewetmaartens359]

Where is the provenance? From which diary is it? Full name of soldier? Why is this never included? Without this very basic information one simply cannot trust the authenticity. The internet is awash with fake diaries. I could write one right now and you would not know whether it is real or fake.

[@freddy-fq2fp]

The Bidermann book is really very readable and interesting. Glad you made this available for those who don't have the book.

[@Chiller11]

“Look at you! You had horses. What were you thinking?” One of my favourite lines from Band of Brothers.

[@ATBatmanMALS31]

I was about to go look this quote up, just so I got it right :^)

[@jimbobjimjim6500]

They also used 640,000 trucks for operation barbarossa, lets not oversimplify....which is an extremely annoying, North american habit....

[@josephallen7185]

Still not enough. @@jimbobjimjim6500

[@robertspence831]

@@jimbobjimjim6500 Cry about it. Oh, you already have....

[@JPGoertz]

Incredibly honest and melancholic. A tough listen. Thank you. Gotta think of the Russians and Ukrainians struggling and dying there now. No more war...!

[@haroldbell213]

Exactly, I love these videos. Can't get enough.

[@terraflow__bryanburdo4547]

They make my life a little easier, my soul more grateful and in awe of the epic scale.....

[@AdamAndreas-g5y]

I’ve literally listened to all of your WW2 content. The narration is first class and the best on KZbin. I appreciate your ability to recite the stories authentically; like one would in reading or writing a diary/journal entry. Never over dramatized and easy to listen and imagine the events. My favorite channel!

[@glawtonmoore]

I agree 100%.

[@stian6390]

I agree 200%

[@deadlyoneable]

A.I. is great isn’t it?

[@joegeezer6375]

outstanding content indeed! My heart goes out to the Wehrmacht Soldaten, hellacious (Extraordinary; remarkable) warriors up against an impossible task in the belly of such a vast land.

[@-John-Doe-]

@@deadlyoneable It depends on how well it’s done, but this is very well done

[@Thegretta92]

These stories are so interesting , hearing the history and personal views and life of soldiers who lived it. Excellent work. Please keep the stories coming.

[@Kingcobra6699]

Incredibly enlightening... How they started, believing their own propaganda just to realize they are just being used. Only to come back into a destroyed country and realizing they have tried to kill a whole people in their Mass Hysterie. That must be the most demoralizing thing, to have fought and sacrificed all those lifes while being "on the wrong side" themselves all the time..... Hard to imagine to recover from something like that, when you might have killed hundreds of people in a single hour as a machine gunner or something like that.... And had to do it day after day all the while being in complete terror themselves... Tough...

[@lewisdean22]

I am in Fiji scuba diving for 3 months, I have just found this channel and love the narrative content.

[@mkailov13]

Tf does your scuba diving have to do with anything

[@lewisdean22]

@@mkailov13 your mother never complained when I went diving.

[@REZNAP]

@@mkailov13 Exactly! Walmart has snow tires on sale... Da Fuq

[@davep153]

I appreciate all the work you folks are doing to get these stories out. Thank you

[@mistackpooleify]

Thank you for posting these interesting and informative narratives. The horrors of war are clearly displayed ....very educational and at times shocking..thank you so much

[@joegeezer6375]

"do not leave us, do not abandon us in the strange place" Man. is that gripping!

[@STVG71]

Thank you for taking the time to upload these videos. I just discovered this channel three days ago. Subscribed!

[@memirandawong]

These interviews are far more vivid than any movie!

[@RasTalarian]

Thank you for feeding my need for these, if I could have them on an IV drip I would.

[@stevi-h7c]

Absolutely brilliant…thank you

[@rogerevans9666]

Henry Kissinger once said: "Germany's problem is that it is too big for Europe and too small for the world."

[@mirquellasantos2716]

Super true.....

[@richardv9648]

On he side note, Kissenger is too big for prison and too small to be in hell.

[@brandaonb4249]

@@richardv9648 He'll be there soon enough!

[@scottyfox6376]

In reality there is only East for more land.

[@mirquellasantos2716]

@@richardv9648 Then according to you all Germans back then went to hell cause they committed the worst atrocities ever done by men. Germans today are good people but their great-grandparents were true evil.

[@xisotopex]

many of those soldiers graves are still there, lost and unknown...

[@babakbabak5329]

I like the diaries of the soldiers as they give a first hand account of the war as it truly was.

[@drummer78]

One of the greatest myths was that the entire German army made a Blitzkrieg with tanks and armor. There certainly was that but at a small percentage overall. The German Army marched into Russia like Napoleon’s Legion some 130 years prior…by foot and with all types of horses.

[@AnthonyOMulligan-yv9cg]

Only a myth among the totally Ignorant

[@scottyfox6376]

The Werhmacht used up millions of European horses, many more than they used in WW1.

[@greenlamp9219]

and the opposite myth that the soviet army was incredibly weak since the purges and was still basically a rural militia with inferior technology to the germans when in fact soviet armor/weapons could stand toe to toe and in many examples like the t34 vs panzer4 was superior to german weaponry which was assumed to be the best in the world at the time

[@drummer78]

@@greenlamp9219 Exactly, the Red Army had tremendous firepower and very good tanks like the aforementioned T-34 and the K’s. They had vast resources when it came to troop numbers and the Red Air Force was strong too.

[@partygrove5321]

Their spearheads were armored and mobile.

[@ericscottstevens]

The HEER already arrived at the decision they would go to more horse drawn after 1940. They simply did not have the fuel reserves to drive the tactical operations by wheel. Rail was still an obvious option but needed to convert to Russian rail gauge that really was not fully comprehended by German planners from the start. As it was rail for this invasion was an issue as Soviet rail sidings yards were about 14km further apart than Reichsbahn siding yards. Outgoing and incoming trains were getting in the way of each other using the tracks per session. Truck transport really was not fully understood by the OKH.

[@jiridrapal7512]

german army already in 1940 was on deficit 2 000 trucks each month and that was without leading a campaign.

[@crystalbluepersuasion1027]

I read that the Tsar planned the railroad that way so that any future invaders wouldn’t be able to use it. It’s interesting that it did become a factor 50 years after his death.

[@tolik5929]

And they became even less mechanized , when the United States went to full bore production

[@terraflow__bryanburdo4547]

Another amazing document!

[@Kingcobra6699]

As a german, I cannot help but think:" Those goddamn american Trucks! The russian army would have had no chance without those Trucks (and all the other Material)" 😉 On the whole, I agree with how history turned out, those Nazis were simply no good idea. I Still cannot help to identify with german soldiers sometimes...

[@maxn.7234]

The Soviet enslavement of 120 million Eastern Europeans and Germany after WW2 wasn't so great for the world. When Germany surrendered in 1945 and USSR became belligerent, General Patton concluded that the US fought the wrong enemy. Your sympathies are not misplaced.

[@ericscottstevens]

One thing about this walking foot army. When these men who survived the ordeal and grew older. Medical observers stated these infantry veterans pelvic girdle was smooth as glass from all the walking into this Russian frontier. Their guts had literally polished the bones surface inside their bodies from the continual pelvic movement. Their colons had less transitional sacs, and intestines were tubular and smoother than normal.

[@jackbauer580]

Bro what?

[@LowEnd31st]

Take your zyprexa

[@larserikolofosterling2338]

Very interesting. How did you get by this information? Did the troops get a bigger trigger finger as well? This is not mentioned as a joke. Have a nice day, my learned friend.

[@AnthonyOMulligan-yv9cg]

They made great Pet's it is said. Very "Smooth Brained" also.

[@johnstudd4245]

@@larserikolofosterling2338 Well, "trigger finger" is a well known medical condition, for what it is worth.

[@darrencox9529]

The world at war is brilliant. I have a video tape box set Showing my age😅

[@TunnelSnakesrule13]

The fact that Germans were educated enough to write about their defeat in such great detail is truly fortunate for us. I cherish the enemy point of view because Sun Tzu said that you must know your enemy as well as yourself. Since we don't know who the enemy will be in the future we must study our past foes.

[@jamesjohnson7556]

I take these stories with a pinch of salt because that's what it's designed for to tel a story (WAR) doesn't have a managed script or flow from one chapter to another. First hand diary entries are the true essence of what's happening in any given moment

[@FinlayPurchase-fd5hu]

Have you ever thought about doing a memoir of a British Soldier?

[@hossdelgado2]

This is from the book In Deadly Combat. A must read.

[@tsclly2377]

Found it on eBay

[@bikesnippets]

All these people never mention the mass slaughters they participated in, or those they witnessed.

[@JuneJarka]

It’s perfectly understandable that you say what you have. I agree with you. If you read the book, SOLDATEN: ON KILLING, FIGHTING AND DYING by Sonke Neitzel a German historian and Harald Welzer, a German social psychologist, you will be able to comprehend a little about the mindset of the soldiers at the time. I am NOT saying that their mindset was or is correct. What I am saying is that it was linked to their survival in a life or death situation as opposed to peacetime values, attitudes, thinking and behaviours when the economic situation is also good. I have made a comment using excerpts quoted from the book written by Sonke Neitzel and Harald Welzer. I apologise if you find my comment offensive. ​ This comment is intended for educational purposes only and is not intended to offend anyone. I apologise if anyone reading the excerpts finds the information discomforting. I am only a viewer, not an academic, nor a specialist of anything. You can find information about the book, SOLDATEN: ON FIGHTING, KILLING AND DYING authors, Sonke Neitzel and Harald Welzer at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sönke_Neitzel and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Welzer. See also: www.amazon.com/Soldaten-Fighting-Killing-Sonke-Neitzel/dp/0771051050 ‘On a visit to the British National Archive in 2001, Sonke Neitzel made a remarkable discovery: reams of meticulously transcribed conversations among German POWs that had been covertly recorded and recently declassified. Netizel would later find another collection of transcriptions, twice as extensive, in the National Archive in Washington. These were discoveries that would provide a unique and profoundly important window into the true mentality of the soldiers in the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, the German navy, and the military in general -- almost all of whom had insisted on their own honourable behaviour during the war. Collaborating with renowned social psychologist Harald Welzer, Neitzel examines these conversations -- and the casual, pitiless brutality omnipresent in them -- from a historical and psychological perspective, and in reconstucting the frameworks and situations behind these conversations, they have created a powerful narrative of wartime experience’ - excerpt. In the book, SOLDATEN: ON FIGHTING, KILLING AND DYING, written by Sonke Neitzel, a German historian, and Harald Welzer, a German social psychologist, first published in Germany in German in 2011 by S.Fischer Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt am Mein, and translated by Alfred A Knopf in 2012 and this version in 2013, published by Simon and Schuster UK Limited, they write in the chapter headed, WAR AS WORK: THE GROUP on pages 336- 339: ‘Cultural differences prevent soldiers of all nationalities from perceiving war universally. Differentiations people make in peacetime persist during war. What distinguishes war from peace, and remains constant from war to war, is camaraderie. Without it, individual soldiers’ behaviour in wartime would be incomprehensible....Samuel Stouffer’s....study from 1948 concludes that the group has far more influence over individual soldiers’ behaviour than ideological convictions, political views, and personal motivations...the Wehrmacht’s ability to do battle was based not on National Socialist fervour, but on the need to satisfy personal needs within the context of group relationships....this aspect of the Wehrmacht’s organisation was supported by modern management and personnel techniques. A soldier’s immediate social environment decides how he perceives and interprets war, and the parameters by which he targets and evaluates his own actions. Every member of a group sees himself as he believes others see him...as Erving Goffman has shown in his “stigma” study, provides the most powerful motivation for people to conform to the norms of the group....In war....the soldier is part of a group he can neither leave nor seek out according to his own personal preference. That is completely different from civilian life, in which people select their own groups. The lack of alternatives to the group a soldier is part of and helps comprise make it an all decisive normative and practical entity, especially as battle is a life or death situation.....Such sentiments underscore the importance of one’s comrades for everything that happens and is thought or decided during war. [Page 336] This far outweighs any significance of any worldviews, convictions, or historical inevitabilities which might have the external conditions leading to the war itself. The internal reality of war, as it presents itself to soldiers, is the group....Michael Bernhardt [an American soldier at the time] who refused to participate in the My Lai massacre [in Vietnam during the Vietnam War] was subsequently ostracised. The only thing that counted, Bernhardt later recalled, was how people thought of you in the here and now, how people in your immediate surroundings regarded you. Bernhardt’s unit was his entire world. What they thought was right, WAS right, what they thought was wrong, WAS wrong. The German soldier Willy Peter Reece would have agreed with Bernhardt: “Just like winter clothing covers up almost all of you except for your eyes, the fact of being a soldier only allowed space for tiny bits of individuality. We were in uniform....we were corrupted in our souls....Our camaraderie arose from our forced dependency on one another and from living together in the closest of confines. Our humour was cruel toward others, black, satiric, obscene, biting, angry. It was a game played with casualties, brains blown out, lice, pus and excrement. We had no belief to carry us.....The fact that we were soldiers was enough to justify any crimes and corruption...We were of no significance, and neither were starvation, frostbite....or being crippled and killed, destroyed villages, plundered cities, freedom and peace. Individuals were least important of all. We could die without a care”....His words resonate with another universal truth of war: reasons don’t matter.[Page 337] There is not one sociological study of World War II that fails to emphasise the relatively minor role played by ideology and abstract convictions in the daily practice of war. Group dynamics, technology, space and time set the parameters that mattered to soldiers and allowed them to orient themselves. Given the dominance of the-here-and-now, the only difference between what soldiers did and what people in modern societies always do when confronted with a task that they are supposed to carry out, was the fact that the former entailed life or death....if you’re a policeman handing out a speeding ticket or a bailiff repossessing a flat screen television from a debtor, you don’t think that you are upholding the values of freedom and democracy. You’re only carrying out a duty you have been charged with. Soldiers do their jobs in war using violence. That’s all that distinguishes them from those of other workers, employees and government officials. The results of soldiers’ work are also different: casualties and destruction.’ [Page 339]. - excerpts. See also: www.theguardian.com/books/2002/may/01/news.features11 : ‘Calls to avenge the Motherland, violated by the Wehrmacht's invasion, had given the idea that almost any cruelty would be allowed. Even many young women soldiers and medical staff in the Red Army did not appear to disapprove. "Our soldiers' behaviour towards Germans, particularly German women, is absolutely correct!" said a 21-year-old from Agranenko's reconnaissance detachment. A number seemed to find it amusing. Several German women recorded how Soviet servicewomen watched and laughed when they were raped. But some women were deeply shaken by what they witnessed in Germany. Natalya Gesse, a close friend of the scientist Andrei Sakharov, had observed the Red Army in action in 1945 as a Soviet war correspondent. "The Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty," she recounted later. "It was an army of rapists." Drink of every variety, including dangerous chemicals seized from laboratories and workshops, was a major factor in the violence. It seems as if Soviet soldiers needed alcoholic courage to attack a woman. But then, all too often, they drank too much and, unable to complete the act, used the bottle instead with appalling effect. A number of victims were mutilated obscenely.’ - excerpt. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes ‘War crimes by Soviet armed forces against civilians and prisoners of war in the territories occupied by the USSR between 1939 and 1941 in regions including Western Ukraine, the Baltic states and Bessarabia in Romania, along with war crimes in 1944-1945, have been ongoing issues within these countries. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a more systematic, locally controlled discussion of these events has taken place.[22] Targets of Soviet atrocities included both collaborators with Germany after 1941 and the members of anti-communist resistance movements such as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in Ukraine, the Forest Brothers in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and the Polish Armia Krajowa. The NKVD also conducted the Katyn massacre, summarily executing over 20,000 Polish military officer prisoners and intelligentsia in April and May 1940. The Soviets deployed mustard gas bombs during the Soviet invasion of Xinjiang. Civilians were killed by conventional bombs during the invasion.’- excerpt.

[@bc2578]

The same could be said of the glowing "history" written by the "victors" of this, and any other, war.

[@maxn.7234]

​@JuneJarka It's easy to be sanctimonious and virtuous behind the safety of your keyboard. It's a whole different matter when your life is on the line. I was aware that many German POWs were secretly recorded but didn't know a study had been published of the results.

[@JuneJarka]

@@maxn.7234 You are free to think what you want. My answer regarding the German soldiers was intended to show that group dynamics set the parameters for their behaviour, not political ideologies. And it is a universal trait among all military people from all countries. I suggest that you get a copy of the book and read it for yourself. The authors are saying that soldiers kill people because it’s their job. It’s what they’re trained to do, like people who work for the government or in the retail sector for instance. They are simply performing a duty that they have been charged with. Not because they feel that they are upholding the values of Socialism, National Socialism, democracy, capitalism or whatever ideological creed they have been told they are fighting for. Reasons don’t matter, which is another universal trait in war. The here and now mindset is important. Soldiers are more interested in things like: where will I sleep tonight, is there enough food and supplies, what’s going on at home. I also put in the information about the Soviets because I wanted to show others that human history is littered with examples of cruelty and abuse during wars and their aftermath. It’s an ugly part of the human condition. These are unpleasant facts, but if we are to understand and try to learn from our personal or collective mistakes, we need to confront even the ugly parts of our history and deal with them in a positive way. That healing starts with acknowledging those things. See: See also: www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/13/susan-neiman-interview-learning-from-the-germans ‘When Susan Neiman’s German friends discovered she was working on a book called Learning from the Germans, they laughed. “They told me: ‘You cannot publish a book with that title. There’s nothing to learn from the Germans; we did too little and too late.’ And there is something paradoxical about saying: ‘Well, we committed this terrible crime, but weren’t we great at coming to terms with it?’ You can’t really say that. But someone who’s a semi-outsider as I am, can, in fact, say that.” Neiman, a moral philosopher, spent part of her childhood in the American south and she has written a comparative study of how Germany has come to terms with the crimes of nazism, and why the US, in failing to confront its own human rights abuses, should take note. Ambitious and detailed, it ranges from the initial reluctance of German citizens to begin the process of truth and reconciliation to small-town Mississippi, and the shooting of nine African American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, four years ago. It was that massacre, carried out by a white supremacist, that prompted Neiman, whose previous books include an examination of the concept of evil, to begin researching and writing Learning from the Germans. From her home in Berlin, where she has lived for the past 22 years, Neiman watched Barack Obama give a heartrending eulogy to the dead, and then followed as governors began to order the taking down of Confederate flags, and Walmart announced that it would stop selling Confederate memorabilia. It struck her that amid the horror lurked a hopeful moment - a moment of potential change - and that she herself had “some knowledge and experience that I could share, that might be helpful”..... In the course of writing the book, Neiman met and interviewed vast numbers of activists and citizens in the American south. One of the key questions she wanted the book to ask was, if we insist on saying that we have to remember the Holocaust in order to learn from it, then what do we want to learn? “And what it seems to me we can learn is, be aware of the beginnings. Be aware of racism, be aware of nationalism. The Nazis went very slowly and carefully to see what the population would accept.”... What African Americans are currently withstanding - radically poorer health outcomes and inequality in education, judicial and incarceration systems, and police brutality directed predominantly towards young black men - is, Neiman argues, part and parcel of white America’s inability to face up to its past, and to the crimes it has committed against African Americans and Native Americans. Only, she says, when you decide to be an adult can you begin to effect change.... “I really do see that our relationship to our nation is like a grown-up relationship to our parents. We have to sort this through and say: ‘These parts of my national history I can be proud of and I can stand by, and these parts I’m sorry for and I’d like to do my best to somehow make up for.’ And I think, once you go through a process like that, you can begin to have a kind of healthy nationalism or patriotism. Which isn’t that my country is better than all countries. But it’s mine.”- excerpts. See also: www.dw.com/en/how-wwii-affects-the-grandchildren-of-the-war-generation/a-53363849 ‘When Sebastian Heinzel thinks of his grandfather, he remembers an "incredibly hard-working man," he says - and he sees himself, too. His grandfather was part of the generation that rebuilt Germany after the war. As time went by, the grandson noticed that there was a kind of pressure in his family to be achievers. "It's not enough that I am just the way I am, I have to do something to be recognized and to acknowledge myself," he says. Both his grandfather and his father were to a certain degree workaholics. Was it a kind of unconscious compensation for the guilt from World War II? Sebastian Heinzel can't say for sure, but he can't rule it out either. "I think there are many things that have not been worked through and many stories that have not been told," Heinzel says. He adds that within his family, it seems to have fallen to him to deal with the emotional fallout. "I think that's part of the job for our generation." Over the past years, at least, he has had fewer nightmares.’ - excerpt and iupress.org/9780253048257/echoes-of-trauma-and-shame-in-german-families/. ‘How is it possible for people who were born in a time of relative peace and prosperity to suddenly discover war as a determining influence on their lives? For decades to speak openly of German suffering during World War II-to claim victimhood in a country that had victimized millions-was unthinkable. But in the past few years, growing numbers of Germans in their 40s and 50s calling themselves Kriegsenkel, or Grandchildren of the War, have begun to explore the fundamental impact of the war on their present lives and mental health. Their parents and grandparents experienced bombardment, death, forced displacement, and the shame of the Nazi war crimes. The Kriegsenkel feel their own psychological struggles-from depression, anxiety disorders, and burnout to broken marriages and career problems-are the direct consequences of unresolved war experiences passed down through their families. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and a broad range of scholarship, Lina Jakob considers how the Kriegsenkel movement emerged at the nexus between public and familial silences about World War II, and critically discusses how this new collective identity is constructed and addressed within the framework of psychology and Western therapeutic culture.’ - excerpt. I am not excusing the Holocaust nor the war atrocities, but you can’t blame the current generation for what occurred back then. I hope that this answer will make sense to you.

[@JuneJarka]

You are free to think what you want. I suggest that you read the book and then re-read my comment. I am not condemning the people involved. I am only stating the findings of 2 German academics and giving examples from elsewhere to show that human history is littered with these kinds of issues.

[@tgwcl6194]

What you can conquer is never relevant. What you can hold is .....

[@raymondmanderville505]

The first truly mechanized army in Europe was the Americans

[@1joshjosh1]

The Canadian army had more trucks per soldier than the Americans

[@Olav3D]

Is this really AI reading? So good

[@rupertmcnaughtdavis3649]

Excellent reading voice.

[@JoseFernandez-qt8hm]

yes, only about 10%... didn't have the oil....

[@asullivan4047]

Interesting and informative excellent photography picture 📷 enabling the viewers to better understand what the orator was describing. Class A research project!!! Unfortunately organized boys of the summer campaign. Never did March into Moscow and visit the Kremlin. Thanks to the disillusioned/arrogant Hitler who changed the invasion plans.

[@scottyfox6376]

Just try to make me eat tinned liver, I double dog dare you..🤢🤬

[@brandaonb4249]

I thought there were orders not to take Ukrainian citizens' food or equipment? He said they took a chicken, potatoes and cucumbers...

[@joemcardle7728]

Where did you get that info?

[@brandaonb4249]

@@joemcardle7728 I think it is even part of the Geneva Conventions... Agreement not to take citizens property.

[@brandaonb4249]

@@joemcardle7728 Regulation states : An army of occupation can only take possession of the cash, funds, and property liable to requisition belonging strictly to the State and not the citizens.

[@joemcardle7728]

@@brandaonb4249 Ok, we are talking here about the Wermacht during the early stages of Barbarossa, Hitler having issued the infamous "Commisar Order" just prior, & where Soviet POW's were starved ro death deliberately, all obstensibly because rhe USSR did not sign the Geneva convention so the Nazi's did not feel compelled to honour the terms or the protections of the statute. vs. the Soviets at that time. Sad but true!

[@bc2578]

He didn't say they stole anything. Sympathetic Russians gladly bartered with their German liberators, or lavished them with whatever humble gifts they could.

[@jerryrichards8172]

They walked across Europe

[@ransommeade3325]

Yes they are outstanding agreed with everyone who commented !!

[@realdizzle87]

As I read these war-diaries, I love the fact that they understand, - we were losing ground on the Eastern Front, if the Americans are in France, the war is lost.

[@AnthonyOMulligan-yv9cg]

Portents, Portents, So Many Portents. A March Into Oblivion.

[@Theearthtraveler]

Great video!!!!

[@lbircher1]

Wonderful video!! Is there more of this story?

[@MasterClassComments]

Please keeo posting the 45+ minute ones!!!

[@Wolf-hh4rv]

Nice to have a neutral accent for narration

[@coffeenclinic]

Sad those poor Russians who didn’t realize that German captivity would not be much safer than fighting. And vice versa for the Germans who surrendered. But some did OK. I have a friend who was in Germany during the war, in her teen years. She recalls prisoners working on nearby farms and being treated well.

[@andrewallen9993]

The British forces were fully mechanised at this time however.

[@ravarga4631]

Usa had mechanized by late 30s

[@andrewallen9993]

@@ravarga4631 Same as the British empire. Germany used American designed GM and Ford trucks as well as the US military.

[@mitchellsmith4690]

​@@ravarga4631No. The5 last cavalry was dismounted in 1943, and most infantry divisions marched a LOT, without enough trucks to transport their full strength aet the same time. T7he Army reverted to mules for logistics in italy i0n 1943, and used them continuously in the CBI theater. The last US mule transport quatermaster company was disbanded, IIRC, in 1956.

[@ravarga4631]

@@mitchellsmith4690 thanksi, i knew there were s few horse / muleunits into 40s and 50s but generally for special terrain in italy, china, burma, korea. Special forces use horses in middle east today. Listen to corb lund song horse soldier.

[@mitchellsmith4690]

@@ravarga4631 I was suprised when I heard that the mule units held until the mid 50s. Cavalry saw action in the Phillipines in early 42! The SF and special purpose is something that can be considered atypical...like the USAF mounted security troops patroling in Hawaii.

[@davidaustrian9455]

90% of German army transport was horse drawn transport. The Russians were given 4 and 6 wheel drive vehicles by the USA lend lease program. The Russians did not pay the American back for it. What a great ally the USSR was. Then the USSR gave the west the Cold War.

[@j.dragon651]

Sometimes it takes more than a lifetime but we reap what we sow.

[@michaelmallal9101]

The Wehrmacht have General Winter to contend with in their light uniforms.

[@kindnessfirst9670]

A book I read about the D- Day invasion in France said that one of the biggest surprises for the Germans witnessing it was that the Allies didn't bring ANY horses. They couldn't imagine an army without a massive number of horses to transport them. Over the course of the war the Germans used 8 times as many horses as trucks. 60 times as many horses as tanks.

[@WintersWar]

general purpose vehicle.

[@beelow84]

This specific book stays getting purged off of yt. as of now, 3 vids from your playlist are hidden. seems ill never finish this audiobook. why are they so hellbent on suppressing history

[@jankusthegreat9233]

I love this narrator

[@JuneJarka]

The narrator is a British actor named Tom Courtenay. See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Courtenay.

[@ragnarjonsson1122]

I don’t, his posh English seems out of place

[@douglasherron7534]

@@ragnarjonsson1122 Would you rather it was narrated in the original German (assuming this is an actual first-hand memoir)?

[@AnthonyOMulligan-yv9cg]

Walter Baddweasel is the thumbnail blonde

[@Mingus8]

Anyone know how come we are suddenly swarmed with German stories from the eastern front ww2? Most people here in the West until now mostly viewed the war in Europe only from their own perspective, but above all from the western Front after the Normandy invasion.

[@mrlodwick]

Just keeps giving!

[@robertmueller2023]

Far from it. None of the infantry division were, and even the panzer/panzer grenadier divisions were only 1/4 armored/motorised at best.

[@michaelmallal9101]

Apparently the Axis may have won the war if Japan had attacked USSR instead of USA?

[@jiridrapal7512]

Japan got smoked by USSR in 39.

[@anthonyeaton5153]

And if the dog hadn't stopped for a crap it would have won the race

[@InquisitorMatthewAshcraft]

And if a frog had wings, it wouldn't bump its arse 😅.

[@thegamingchef3304]

Russian troops were freezing just like Germans were. But then Russia called up their Siberian troops and that was a huge difference. Think about how you are in winter -5 degrees or single digits...But then when it jumps up to 20-25 degrees it feels warm enough to walk around with short sleeves. That's what it was like for Siberian troops to go to the front lines and fight the Germans. The cold was nothing for them. I was watching a video the other day and the narrator said the Russians focused on their offensive side more and didn't build up the Russian defense...But then a minute later they were talking about how the Germans ran into rain and then snow and then the weather killed many of them. I said the Russians were smart not to waste energy and man power building defenses when they knew their weather would be their best defense.

[@mrmoralman1]

20 million Russians dead = russians smart?

[@Go_for_it652]

With trucks the army could have moved at a speed with four times the movements .

[@haroldcruz8550]

Blitzkrieg involves Panzer, Artillery, Air Force and Infantry moving as one unit. trucks require fuel which would have strained their fuel supply even more and with the muddy terrain of Russia I don't think they would have gotten any faster.

[@mauriceclark4870]

Is this Tom. Courtney. Narrator. Good speaker. Played a Russian in. Dr Zhivago. Strelnikof ??

[@AnthonyOMulligan-yv9cg]

@@mauriceclark4870 Sounds like

[@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935]

@@mauriceclark4870He’s 86 years old, unlikely to be him.

[@PlasticSorcererTheOriginal]

They needed the oil first

[@giuseppeparisi8611]

Oltre 60 German infantry division solo a piedi con 600.000 horse 🐎 😢

[@lexington476]

What book is this series of stories from?

[@tgwcl6194]

Army going into oblivion ..................

[@brp5497]

Mechanized infantry 70's Germany and uncle infantry ww2 in Italy.

[@Smog104]

Who is narrating thanks ??

[@AnthonyOMulligan-yv9cg]

Herr Herr......Heil Herr

[@bikingviking3984]

this goldmine of truth telling finally made me cough up $12 bucks for YT Premium, you should get a cut my man...

[@dutchhoke6555]

Mechanized enough..for awhile

[@raymondmanderville505]

Correct , but once studebaker & dodge trucks began to arrive in the USSR , it convert the Red army from the victims of the fast moving German pincers , to the purveyor of encircling movements

[@ronalddunne3413]

Too damn many "commercial breaks" to watch more than 10 minutes of this. Sad. Can only surmise that all "WW2 Stories" are more of same- heavily commecialised.

[@-Sierra117-]

Watch last ten seconds then drag the bar back to beginning will fix that wen listening on phone

[@bc2578]

Just install an ad blocker. I haven't hear a commercial in years on YT.

[@InquisitorMatthewAshcraft]

Just installed one.

[@powderbeast5598]

Wow, very soon lend-lease with heavy duty trucks. .No-winter uniforms. Maybe. ...

[@waynesutherland-rs6ct]

the French took moscow, the germans failed to do likewise

[@jamesrogers47]

But taking Moscow meant nothing. The French Grand Armee starved and froze, and what was left, staggered , disease riddled, back to France.

[@Maks-xg2fd]

That's common knowledge for Russia and objective historically accurate truth. What most people don't understand is that Germans were heavily armoured only in propaganda videos made for occupied countries and domestic public. If you like to know the truth try to read about invasion of a Poland and France and devastating results in loosing armoured vehicles, tanks and airplanes. They didn't understand even a picture or map of England. If they can understand that they will be capable to understood that UK Is an island who depends on their colonial possessions. Without winning war on the see they are in stalemate situation. They loosing best pilots of Luftwaffe on enormous scale because every last of pilots who was shot down they were forever lost for Germany. To win it was crucial not to attack Russian and to be concentrating on winning war at see. Because of that stupid mistake they have lack of air support and as a result mechanised unit's was suffering too much loses. They attack USSR with 3 unrealistic expectations. 1. They was hoping USSR was extremely weak and with low morale. 2. They hope that winter aint gonna be cold and they will be defeat USSR in couple of month. 3. They hoped that USSR will lose all their industrial capacity in several weeks after the invasion and on the other side they hope Germany will be successful in pillaging European continent and obtain enough resources. It's shameful how they are thinking that they are superior to others so they succeed to make an enemy even in people in Ukraine or Polland. For that is the extremely important to know that German high tech and numerous tanks were pure a myth.

[@kxd2591]

Good storytelling. I wish a source had been cited.

[@CAVEMANICK]

Algorithm helped

[@scoutandastir]

March of the Thugs.

[@cliveengel5744]

What a load of nonsense - 195 Divisions mostly mechanized divisions - only the Supply Convoys were horse and cart. 15,000 Panzers and Trucks and Kampftwagens. 12,000 Planes. Nobody walked into Russia,

[@revolutioninformationburea6719]

lets divide the number 15,000 by 3 for each category, thats 5,000 per, it would barely cover 20 divisions let alone 195, they advanced on foot, in horse cart, truck, but what was more available, 5,000 trucks or 2 million legs

[@cliveengel5744]

@@revolutioninformationburea6719 - Only the supple trains where Horse Drawn - Guderian the father of Combined Arms and Blitzkrieg developed the light Panzer and KampftWagen APC’s - how could them walking 1500 km into Russia. The US and UK could only make 400 km in a year - The Wehrmacht made 1500 km in 3 months all the way to Moscow. The key was the light Panzer 3 and the Panzerkampfwagen I (PzKpfw I). And the BMW motocycle with sidecar and Mercedes Trucks. Nobody walked into Russia - Comrade.

[@blackllama4602]

Russian is too big

[@Paulftate]

semper fi

[@mauriceclark4870]

A. Lot of. Americans. If you use horses how can you hope to win modern war

[@bc2578]

I don't know, the Vietcong only had bicycles......