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Originally Posted by senojekips Yes, I believe that most of that has been well documented Particularly about the Free Korps which had units of many nationalities.
The Jews serving with the Nazis were less well known about for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which, was that it would have detracted from the guilt trip, that they were trying to hang on the Allies after WWII.
I might add that personally, I feel that "guilt trip" was at least partially deserved, although not all, as England and others were very busy fighting for their own survival without which all of the European Jews would have gone through the mill. |
There was piece on TV about Churchill's German Army. Millions of soldiers fought against Hitler’s Germany in WW2, but one group of men and women sacrificed everything in the battle against the Nazis. They knew they could be tortured and executed as traitors if captured but were still willing to die for their adopted country. One German was a fighter pilot in the RAF, a tank driver originally from Bonn who survived the Dachau concentration camp yet was among the first Allied troops to capture Hamburg, and the veteran who shot the infamous Lord Haw Haw in the buttocks.*
They were described as ‘suicide soldiers’ because of their German nationality and the fact that many of them were Jewish meant they would face torture and execution if they were ever captured. Yet all of them were volunteers – not conscripts like the majority of British forces. Over the decades that followed, they became so deeply assimilated into society that they became as British as the Brits.
As many as 10,000 Germans and Austrians fled Nazi persecution and joined British forces to fight against Hitler. Neighbours, colleagues and fellow soldiers all suspected they were traitors and double agents, so life in their adopted communities was hellish, and they had to fight doubly hard to prove their dedication to the war effort. But facing these challenges, these incredible volunteers played a key part in some of the most important events of the war.
Featuring moving personal testimonies, Churchill’s German Army tells the compelling stories of these extraordinary heroes for the first time.