Generation War: our mothers our fathers

[winkywinkola]

Anyone watching this?

It's brilliant.

My knowledge, history and reasoning aren't up to a proper debate, I just hope they don't sanitise it too much. I really enjoyed the first episode and hope it continues to be as strong and, dare I say it, entertaining.
Thinking about it, my mum's communist friend's husband was executed by the Nazis so that would be discouraging.

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada is one of the most nerve wracking books I have ever read.

My mum is German - born in 1933 - and she was made to go into a Hitler Youth group. Her mum yanked her out of it when she realised how much brainwashing was going on. She got a bit of trouble but because they were moving around Germany a lot - not sure why - they got away with it.

My mum always remembers the absolute TERROR of the Russians coming. Her mother was petrified. And that's about as much as I can get out of her.

Perhaps there were lots of German dissidents during the WWII but you kept your mouth shut. Apparently.

Alone in Berlin was a R4 Classic Serial a few years ago - I read the book after hearing it.

The Germans ain't killing grandad. ;)

I think they portrayed it really well, especially the ambivalence of Charlotte.

I thought it was very good.

And a good point about "normal" people not protesting. In England now the poor are getting a very raw deal, with all the sanctioning, and lack of sickness benefits etc plenty of people are being discriminated against.

It's not the same - but it shows how good people can watch society change and "do" nothing, even if they disagree with what is going on.

Normal people not protesting - yes - so easy to say that we don't know what is going on, because we have never bothered to find out.

I watched Downfall the other week, and the girl on that was like my mother, I thought. It made me realise that Mum, who also worked as a secretary, could at a different time and place have been that girl. Someone who was certainly not evil, but rather innocent and unquestioning.

So - how do we know how long the snooker will overrun for? Anyone know whether it will be worth staying up late for....
I have no idea how snooker works...

They keep putting the start time later and later.Ah snooker finished.
Why can't sports be put on the red button when they overrun?

Blardy annoying. I will watch it properly on Catch Up tomorrow. Grrrrr. But will there be anything to catch up, the snooker's still on?!!

Very annoying. I had a bath early and everything so I was all ready for it on the sofa in my dressing gown, and bloody snooker - who wants to watch that?

I think they said it will be shown next week instead, during one point when I flicked back to see if anything had changed. Oh - no, it's just starting right now!

I wonder why they focused on the Russian front.

Would it be harder to sell as a drama if it were about the western front?

It was fighting the eastern front which cost them the war, and Stalingrad showed them things weren't all going to go their way. It was different from fighting us. Stalin could sacrifice thousands and thousands of men very easily - the casualties on the eastern front were a lot higher, and there really was a (well-founded) fear of the Russians coming - firstly, there was the fear of Communism; Hitler was certainly seen (in Britain) the lesser of two evils before the war started. But when the Russians did come, they raped and murdered. It was far better off to be beaten by the west than the east.

I think we see the western front as more important because it's where our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were, but the eastern front was far harder, in terms of distances, weather and the resources Stalin could throw against them, drawn from a population which had been through the worst years of Stalinism in the 1930s, where people had literally been starving and where dissent was dealt with by the NKVD (predecessor to the KGB) and the Gulags, so fighting the Nazis was probably a better deal for most Russians. Either way, there was a good chance it meant death. I am not sure the Allies could have (nor would have) treated their forces so harshly without it causing massive problems within the forces and at home.

Although you're also right that in not chosing the western front, it may make it more saleable overseas. But it would have been a different programme. The eastern front wasn't a posting anyone would have chosen.

Yes. I just said that about the western front ! Less palatable.

Yes, but I don't think the less palatable thing would be a major factor. I think it is more that it's where they lost the war.

If they skip another two years next week, it'l be at 1945, so it'll be interesting to see how they deal with that.

I am dumb on these matters but didn't the Western Front only really come into play after D-Day? Up until then they had swept through Western Europe in 6 months or so and lurked in Northern France, fighting in the air? Wasn't the Western Front mostly when they were making stands (big ones, see Band of Brothers) but losing and retreating.

I think we are looking with rather Anglo-centric eyes.

There wasn't much happening in western Europe till D-Day or so (at least in terms of who was in charge of territory) - the war was mostly being fought round the Med, in northern Africa and the Balkans and so on (and the far East, but that's not so relevant here, other than it meant fewer Allied forces spare to fight in Europe/Africa.) Still, even if there wasn't so much action in France and so on, at least from a British perspective, it was still war, not peace, and there needed to be a military presence to maintain the German gains. It was a cushy posting compared with the eastern front (although possibly not quite like Allo, Allo...)

In 1939, the USSR was allied with the axis powers, but changed in 1941. I suppose until then, there didn't need to be a distinction between eastern and western fronts in a European sense, but I am speculating a bit, as I don't know what language the Germans were using for it all at the time, and need to think about lunch and then spring-cleaning the bedroom, so I should resist the urge to procrastinate by looking it up.

(Haven't seen Band of Brothers.)

The majority of resources of the German army were focused on the Eastern front, which meant that soldiers lost on the Western front couldn't be replaced. Thus, when DDay came, the Germany army didn't have the forces to resist significantly the Allied advance.

The Germans were bat-shit terrified of the Russians*, quite rightly, because the latter had not signed up to the Geneva convention of '29 and treated PoWs appallingly. Their labour camps were similar to Nazi labour camps and some captured German soldiers were just shot. Confirmed sources indicate around 300,000 Wehrmacht PoWs died in Russian camps but German historians put the figure at over 1 million: they reckon many German soldiers reported missing actually died in the camps. To be fair, around 3 million Russian PoWs died in German custody, because Russians, like Slavs, Jews etc were on the Nazi extermination list.

*technically Soviets

The German documentary I linked above, which can be found on youtube, is an excellent of view the war from the perspective of the German army. The historian, Sonke Neitzel, was one of the contributors and he also wrote, or rather collated, two fascinating books:

Tapping Hitler's Generals

Soldaten

These books are transcripts of bugged conversations between German PoWs in UK camps during the war. The first focuses on the high ranks - ie generals etc, the second focuses on ordinary soldiers.

It gives a very good insight into the experiences of German solders during the war, and war from a German perspective.

Ebearhug you must try to see Band of Brothers. I know it's from the Allies' pov but it is great TV

Blimey! I don't know about a GCSE student watching the programme-they should see this thread & steal read some of the excellent comments for their essays.
I thought this weeks' episode was a better watch than the first week. I've read 'Alone in Berlin' & also read 'Band of Brothers' (plus watched the tv series of it) I wholeheartedly agree that the Hans Fallada book was absolutely brilliant & nerve wracking at the same time.

Is Band of Brothers also a book then? There's more chance of me reading it than seeing it.

I'm not aware if it as a book. It is a brilliant TV series though. Spielberg I think

Just seen that there is a programme after the final episode on Saturday examining the historical facts behind the series. I will definitely watch that. I hope there is no random "sporting" event to spoil things this week

Oh, that sounds good.