'They seized three-year-old children and shot them': conversations of German prisone

[Bangyai]

Interesting read :

Some of the most brutal and horrifying atrocities of the Nazis at war are laid bare in secretly recorded conversations of captured German soldiers published in Britain for the first time today.

The prisoners, mostly ordinary soldiers, sailors and airmen as opposed to SS hardliners, are overheard bragging about shooting women and children for sport as well as raping and slaughtering innocent civilians.

But unbeknown to them, British and U.S. intelligence were secretly eavesdropping on their private chats.

Horrors of war: Secretly recorded conversations between German prisoners of war reveal the darkest corners of the Nazi psyche. Here soldiers walk terrified Polish women into the woods to be needlessly shot

Their conversations betray how deep the Nazi state corrupted the military code, and in doing so, the men who considered themselves honourable - men like Oberleutnant Hans Hartigs from fighter squadron.

16 which won 26 Knights Crosses in combat on all fronts during the war.
Hartigs was speaking of the targets he liked to go for - unarmed civilians - when the microphones were switched on one day in January 1945.
'I used to shoot at everything,' he said laconically, 'certainly not just military targets. We liked to go for women pushing prams, often with children at their sides. It was a kind of sport really.....'

Or this from another unnamed Oberleutnant of the Luftwaffe, captured on July 17 1940 after baling out from his aircraft over Kent; 'It became a need in me to drop bombs. It tingles me, gives me a fine feeling. Just as beautiful, in fact, as shooting at someone

Full article :

Read more: 'They seized three-year-old children and shot them': Darkest atrocities of the Nazis laid bare in the secretly recorded conversations of German prisoners of war | Mail Online

[socal]

Krauts being krauts.

It's still the saddest part of WW2 that Germany wasn't nuked.

[The Ghost Of The Moog]

Worth pointing out that the Daily Mail, source of this article, endorsed Hitler's Chancellorship at the time.

[nedwalk]

war is war...was,nt just the germans...years ago i worked on a road construction with an alcholic scrapper operator, it came out that he used to be a gunner on a chopper in vietnam...as he said one drunken night..fuck it i was 10 and they geve me this great big fucking machine gun and said shoot it..and i fucking loved it, i shot anything that fucking moved...

[ShrewedPunter]

I never understood how these atrocities occured.

I've served in the military, i know all about orders and chain of command, but id never commit acts like that and would probably die myself if ordered to do it..

It's almost as if the entire German population was inherintly Evil.

But compared with the Japanese they were saints.
Bayoneting newborn babies out of their mothers stomach and the rest

[socal]

I never understood how these atrocities occured.

I've served in the military, i know all about orders and chain of command, but id never commit acts like that and would probably die myself if ordered to do it..

It's almost as if the entire German population was inherintly Evil.

But compared with the Japanese they were saints.
Bayoneting newborn babies out of their mothers stomach and the rest

It's almost as if the entire German population was inherintly Evil.

No, its the Joos that are evil

[Butterfly]

don't underestimate the cruelty of the average person,

see how American soldiers are acting the same in Iraq, Afghanistan etc...

that kind of monstrosity is inside everyone and it's just asking to be released under the right conditions

[Bangyai]

don't underestimate the cruelty of the average person,

see how American soldiers are acting the same in Iraq, Afghanistan etc...

that kind of monstrosity is inside everyone and it's just asking to be released under the right conditions

I think that peer pressure can be a deciding factor in the behavior of those who's tendancy is to run with the herd. Once leaders of the said herd condone certain unworthy actions as permissible in order to meet some bogus objective, then it doesn't take too long before the previously unacceptable behavior becomes a justifiable expedient.

It takes a brave person who will set themselves apart from the crowd to denounce something if it means putting their own neck on the line. Fortunately, there are always some people who are willing to take the risk in order to try to prevent the runaway madness of the masses.

[Davis Knowlton]

If we're looking at records of atrocities during (and immediately after) WWII, let's not forget the Russians, who, having suffered unimaginable losses, took revenge on the German military and civilian population every time they got a chance.

[kmart]

War atrocities and genocides occur when conquering armies and dominant forces start referring to their victims as sub-human or animals. "Untermensch" as the Germans referred to them. You remove their humanity and it becomes easy to butcher them.

[Albert Shagnastier]

let's not forget the Russians, who, having suffered unimaginable losses

In the region 0f 30 million people I believe

[Davis Knowlton]

let's not forget the Russians, who, having suffered unimaginable losses

In the region 0f 30 million people I believe

Counting both military and civilian deaths, I think that's pretty close to the generally accepted number. The official Russian number is 26.6 million.

[Necron99]

let's not forget the Russians, who, having suffered unimaginable losses

In the region 0f 30 million people I believe

Counting both military and civilian deaths, I think that's pretty close to the generally accepted number. The official Russian number is 26.6 million.

^ Quite a bit of which was red on red.

To the OP, we are, many of us, just a bees' dick away from anarchy once the thin veneer of civilization is taken away and while we may think differently, not many know how they would act in an environment where the consequences have been removed.
Most psych experiments with the guard/inmate scenario or punish as ordered experiments tend to suggest most are just as brutal or will willingly kill under instruction.

[Butterfly]

the behavior of those who's tendancy is to run with the herd.

which is the majority of people,

those monstrosity is the majority, not the exception. It only takes a single leader to unlock an army of monsters.

[koman]

let's not forget the Russians, who, having suffered unimaginable losses

In the region 0f 30 million people I believe

Counting both military and civilian deaths, I think that's pretty close to the generally accepted number. The official Russian number is 26.6 million.

The great book "Stalingrad" by Anthonly Beevor is full of accounts taken from the letters, diaries and interviews with Germans and Russians who fought on the front.

The atrocities where almost beyond belief. Thousands of Ukrainian and Russian families just turned out of their homes into the freezing cold.....they even took away their overcoats. Thousands just shot for no particular reason other than being there.

The Russians (under the orders or Stalin) shot 14,000 of there own officers for conduct deemed to be anti-soviet. Men who had retreated after running out of ammunition, food and water for days were shot for cowardice simply for trying to get back to their own lines. There was a record of a 19 year old soldier being executed because he was overheard saying that the Germans seemed to make very good airplanes. The Germans shot at everything that moved too.

Strangely enough in the midst of all the carnage, there were acts of extraordinary kindness and courage towards enemy combatants and civilians by members on both sides. The one uplifting thing to come out of the Stalingrad campaign was that how ever much war can de-humanize people.....there are some that just don't give in to it.

[Bangyai]

the behavior of those who's tendancy is to run with the herd.

which is the majority of people,

Agreed, which is why it is a herd , because thats where the numbers are.

[DrAndy]

could be a small herd

[baldrick]

or hard to be heard ?

[Cujo]

War certainly seems to free the inner serial killer.
It gives people who have these tendencies the opportunity to indulge them.

[tonyroma]

War certainly seems to free the inner serial killer.
It gives people who have these tendencies the opportunity to indulge them.

yes 100%correct...lots of people ENJOY the experience