Our final bear from das Heer is a fellow I cropped from near the center of a unit group portrait.
He is the only man in the photo not holding or lying next to a rifle. He is, howver, carrying two ammunition cases on his belt. Maybe he left his rifle in the barracks.
Bittersweet viewing, I'm sure many of these men had no idea what they may have been heading into. But, both sides had something in common and that was to survive.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard not to feel some sympathy, whatever the side. Most of these men were conscripts who would rather have been doing almost anything else. And yes, just surviving was the main objective.
Delete9.7 million military men were killed in Ww1 along with 10 million civilians. :(
ReplyDeleteNot to mentions millions more injured.
All for the pride and vanity of the monarchs and politicians of Europe, not so noble or statesman like. :(
And the people of Europe and shockingly the veterans themselves, filled with anger and resentments from Ww1, egged on Ww2 through their support of political extremism during the interwar period. :(
Within six weeks of the Armistice, several German generals began spreading the lie that Germany hadn't really lost the war.
DeleteGeneral Ludendorff started the false trope that the Weimar government stabbed Germany in the back, when it was due to his tedious micro-managing and disastrous spring offensive that sent Germany reeling and to its final defeat in 1918. Then the anger at the Versailles treaty and its harsh terms, which were greatly modified to more reasonable terms by the Locarno treaties of 1925, in which Germany would pay off war debts in installments ending ironically in 1945. :/
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