Posted on 03/23/2015 4:37:03 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
Yeah, it’s a pretty good propaganda diversion when you can divert a Patton.
I’m not so sure the “National Redoubt” wasn’t a convenient excuse. I think the paramount interest Ike had on Berlin was not shedding American blood to capture a city we would have to turn over to the Soviets anyway. Let the Soviets shed their blood.
Plus, I give Ike credit for having a good view of the bigger picture. Every American spared death by calling off the Berlin operation is an American who can die in the Tokyo one.
Not that it mattered that much, since Roosevelt and Eisenhower had already determined that we weren’t going to Berlin.
Maybe it was inevitable, considering the realities on the ground, but it was a reality that led to any German trapped east of the Elbe paying a fearful price. Especially the women.
Maybe they “deserved” it, maybe not. Only God Himself knows that, really.
But I can’t help feeling sorry for them anyway.
Yep.
Now it's my turn to LOL.
Among them was my father, in 20th Armored.
I've said before that it's hard to feel "sorry" for anyone at this stage of the war. The increasing cycle of brutality has burned out so much ordinary human decency that we depend upon for our day-to-day living.
I feel sorry for the German babies who froze to death in their prams while their mothers tried to flee over the icy roads of Pomerania and East Prussia to escape the Soviet hordes. Three years ago, I felt sorry for the Russian babies who starved to death while their parents tried to scratch out an existence living in earthen dugouts in occupied Smolensk. Brutality only beget more brutality.
The best can be said at this point is that there is one more hard does of brutality to mete out, and then it will be over.
I hear ya.
That's an excellent point I've often pondered. It was disappointing to the troops, but by this time a lot are thinking they just might live through this war. Even if we took land in what had been earmarked the Soviet zone, Roosevelt and Churchill would not have attempted to renegotiate the Yalta settlement.
Even so, there were other compensations. One of my favorite scenes in Band of Brothers is sitting on Hitler's patio drinking Goering's liquor.
My dad brought home as a souvenir, or war trophy, a rock from Hitler’s fireplace there, at his Bertchesgaden aerie.
My understanding while hazy is that assorted pockets of Germans in the East experienced very hard doses of brutality in the first couple of weeks of May.
Now that is cool!
Same here, especially the women. If their menfolk were fighting in the East, which most were, they will probably not be coming home. Their plight was grim, dodging Russian rape gangs and trying to get enough food to eat.
“I see. Suribati, not Suribachi. The staff officer who supervised the typing of that report should be transferred to Desron 57 for a while to think about the importance of accuracy in communication. The repercussions of his sloppiness would resonate for 70 years. Chester will need to be more careful in future also.”
The supply guys are disappointed, they thought they would have some ice cubes for the drinks.
German forces in Czechoslovakia were still fighting to escape the Soviets as late as May 13. What they were fighting with, I don’t know. They certainly ceased receiving any meaningful supplies in late April, so they must have been fighting with whatever they had on hand.
You know they were desperately trying to escape to the west to surrender to the Americans.
Speyer was my least favorite town in Germany. It was the only place in Germany that the Germans allowed us to dig foxholes, and believe you me, we dug lots of them there.
Only a few years prior they were all fainting at the sight of Hitler.
Reminds me of more recent times....
Operation Plunder
Beginning on the night of 23 March 1945, Operation Plunder was the crossing of the River Rhine at Rees, Wesel, and south of the Lippe River by the British 2nd Army, under Lieutenant-General Miles Dempsey (Operations Turnscrew, Widgeon, and Torchlight), and the U.S. Ninth Army (Operation Flashpoint), under Lieutenant General William Simpson. XVIII U.S. Airborne Corps, consisting of the British 6th Airborne Division and the U.S. 17th Airborne Division, conducted Operation Varsity, parachute landings on the east bank in support of the operation. All of these formations were part of the 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. This was part of a coordinated set of Rhine crossings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plunder
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