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Here is an interesting slideshow of post-war photos. I think my favorite is the last one of a Japanese soldier who finally surrendered in 1974, when I was 3 years old.
#13. The German transfer. I did not know this. That's a lot….12-14 mill according to the description.This has to be one of the most interesting sets of photographs I ever saw.
Ski,You did not know that millions of Germans were kicked out of places their families had lived for centuries at the end of the war? I suppose it is one of the great untold stories of WWII in English historiography of the war. The street I live on has its name because it was built to house ejectees from the Czech Sudetenland, a historically German area of the modern Czech Republic. All the place names in Czech have been changed from their German originals since the end of the war as well. It made doing research for my MA thesis a blast.
I knew the Germans displaced those in countries they invaded, but I did not know Germans were forced to move after the war.
The post war forced migration of Germans was the largest migration of a people of one ethnic group in history.
There's much that is not common knowledge regarding WWII. I remember reading that about 500,000 German POWs died in Western Allied camps during the winter of 1945-46. Quite a difference from the treatment German and Italian POWs received in the USA. They even got to ride on trains with the whites in the South when being transported from camp to camp.How the Germans and Soviets treated their POWs is much better known.
That last photo of the surrendering Japanese soldier is amazing. His story sounds really interesting, especially how he “befriended' the Japanese school-dropout.As for #25, I wonder why the German women were all smiling just months removed from the war.
My wife's uncle was captured in Stuttgart in late '44 and spent a year in an American POW camp in France. He has nothing but good things to say about Americans. The number of dead in allied captivity is 50,000. Still a lot but not as bad as the 2-3 million that died in Soviet camps.
Scout, you may be right about the approx. 50,000 — yet the number claimed by Canadian writer Bacque in his book Other Losses ignited a controversy when he claimed up to a million German POWs died in Allied camps under Eisenhower's orders — well refuted by American historian Steven Ambrose who, if I remember had some credibility problems of his own in another area. Unfortunately, no exact documentation exists on how to separate the severely wounded and diseased on their way to certain death in captivity from those supposedly deliberately starved or had their medications and treatments withheld. I should have added "I read but do not necessarily believe." It was a bitter winter, there were food shortages throughout Germany and the formerly occupied countries, and the Displaced Persons often received priority of supplies. As we know, the numbers will be manipulated by those with specific agendas.
As for #25, I wonder why the German women were all smiling just months removed from the war.
War is over, school for the kids, life goes on
War is over, school for the kids, life goes on
Yeah, but...half of their relatives probably died, their homes and/or towns are dilapidated, the future of Germany is one of occupation...sort of bleak, I would think.
When I was stationed in Kaiserslautern Germany, February 1955-July 1956, there was a noticeable absence %-wise of men in their thirties and forties.
When I was stationed in Kaiserslautern Germany, February 1955-July 1956, there was a noticeable absence %-wise of men in their thirties and forties.
There still is, it seems at times that most German are in their 60s or 70s. It struck me the other day that I hardly ever see any children around except when school lets out or starts in the morning and that is mainly because the local school is right behind my house.
That last photo of the surrendering Japanese soldier is amazing. His story sounds really interesting, especially how he "befriended' the Japanese school-dropout.
RIP Hiroo OnodaJapan WW2 soldier who refused to surrender Hiroo Onoda dies
