What did you do in the war grandad?

ejmaztec

I wonder if the German TV networks would ever dare to do a series of "Who do you think you are"?

The Daily Mail covers this book as well, and mentions that Martin Davidson's grandfather was kneeling down in front of a Czech partisan executioner in Prague in 1945, expecting a bullet to the head like his colleagues had suffered beside him. One of the Soviet overlords called a halt to the executions, so the grandfather survived.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7966156/The-Perfect-Nazi-by-Martin-Davidson-review.html

The Perfect Nazi by Martin Davidson: review
Dominic Sandbrook finds out what happens when you discover your grandfather was a Nazi



Since the past few years have seen an explosion of interest in genealogy, few people can have escaped stories about their friend’s great great grandfather, a loss adjuster in Victorian Humberside, or great Aunt Doris, who once almost met George Formby. For the television producer Martin Davidson, however, research into his family history threw up more unsettling results.

As a child growing up in Scotland, he thought his grandfather, Bruno Langbehn, was merely a retired German dentist, a “Technicolor character” full of jokes and stories. There were occasional hints that, like so many Germans of his generation, Bruno had skeletons rattling around: his unexplained fondness for all things Hungarian, for example, or his love of meeting up with his Kriegskameraden, his “wartime buddies”. But when he died in 1992, nothing could have prepared Davidson for what was coming

Morlar

ejmaztec wrote: »

I wonder if the German TV networks would ever dare to do a series of "Who do you think you are"?

That could be interesting, as could a tony robinson time team special or two.

marcsignal

Morlar wrote: »

That could be interesting, as could a tony robinson time team special or two.

certainly would, but Abe might have a thing or two to say about that.... as in "NO FOOKIN WAY!!"

.

hinault

My mother in law was today diagnosed with cancer unfortunately.
The prognosis isn't good sadly.

However, in speaking with my mother in law earlier this year, she told me about how, as young girl of 20 she emigrated to London for work.
Her stories about the bombing of London in late 1940 and early 1941 are fascinating to listen too.

She is able to recall vividly the force of the explosions and the blackouts and the wailing of the sirens which preceeded each bombing raid.

Her family back here in Ireland pleaded with her to return home and she did so only to end up in the North Strand when it too was bombed!

the_syco

In WW2 both sides committed atrocities, but it was only the losers who were tried for it.

In the 1950's USA tested a nuclear bomb on it's own soldiers, as did the French on it's own tropps in the 1960's. Those who orchestrated this will never be tried.

As Winston Churchill once said: history is written by the victors.

In the end, only the losers will pay the price for the war, but first you must catch the losers. Having seen how their comrades were treated, I can't see many of them volunteering any information, in fear of attacks on them, or their innocent families, for deeds that they may have tried to forget for decades.

Once the propaganda faded, and they saw the "big picture" of what they contributed to, I'd say a lot of them got the f**k out of there.