Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Gee LP (A) on August 29, 2005 at 19:14:34

In Reply to: There are always some What If's... posted by Victor Khomenko on August 29, 2005 at 18:12:27:

Victor, in one of my history textbooks, several pages from a German soldier's diary are reprinted. The soldier was fighting at Stalingrad and at first thought they would all be home for parades and honors by Christmas. A few entries later he is cursing the resisters and asking why they are sacrificing themselves for something that they will obviously lose. A few more entries later...well, I'm sure you know how it ends...the soldier is waiting for capture and imprisonment...and that's if he is lucky.

But the Russians had to resist. As you have pointed out before, they had no choice. All they had to look forward to if the Nazis succeeded was slaughter and total, abject enslavement. Hitler had made that quite clear.

Your comments about American entertainment stereotypes of the "buffoonish" Nazis led me to ask my wife a question: Did her father enjoy programs like "Hogan's Heroes"? (He was a POW at Stalag Luft III). Unfortunately, she could not remember, and he was very tight-lipped about his experiences in the war. She and her brothers knew he had served, knew he had been a POW, but never thought to ask him about it...even when watching "The Great Escape" on TV (the events of which took place before he arrived at Stalag Luft III)!

The history we are losing from simply not knowing to ask is amazing.