Where was the Luftwaffe on D-Day? - German Response to Operation Overlord, Normandy
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- čas přidán 25. 05. 2017
- The 73 Anniversary of D-Day is nearly upon us so let us talk about the Luftwaffe's involvement in the Battle of Normandy!
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⚜ Sources ⚜
Matthew Cooper, Die Luftwaffe 1933-1945 - Eine Chronik, 1988
E.R. Hooton, Eagle in Flames, Arms and Armour, 1997
Josef Priller, J.G. 26 - Geschichte eines Jagdgeschwaders, Motorbuch Verlag, 1980
Lexikon der Wehrmacht
www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/
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⚜ Movie ⚜
The Longest Day (1962) - 20th Century Fox
German humor shows in your myth. I never heard of it. The only (non)myth there is that allies crushed germans in the air. Which is true. The actual myth concerning air-force from that time (and onward) was how supposedly allied fighter-bombers were effective on tank-hunting. Also I find a problem of totaling allied plane loses out of context, giving impression they had been shot down by "superior" german fliers. When in truth 99% were lost to the flak (not to mention those looses were insignificant to the allies). Allied supremacy was so big that later in the ardenness allies were stunned by the fight that luftwaffe put up and there are accounts of "allied infantry caught like a deer in a headlights" before few focke-wulfs doing ground support. This didn't come from anywhere after all. Since normandy germans were practically unable to deliver any ground support, so though they were flying and desperately trying to win the battle for air supremacy - they were rarely able to even reach area's of their targets. So they were practically unknown threat to the average GI joe on the ground. They would be lucky to find a smoldering wreck of a german plane somewhere in fact. After all, it would be far easier to find an allied one shot by the flak.
Still, not a bad vid. Some insight on what I already knew. If you're feeling to debunk some myths, how about Wacht am Rhein? The myth is that air force was grounded by the weather which doesn't hold up to the facts at all. In fact, the very fist day (or second, I don't have my book at hand to refresh my memory) allies even have strafed kampfgruppe's peiper's column, notably detracking and doing minor damage to a few tanks from a king tiger column (which allied pilots of course have labelled as 'utterly destroyed' in their reports). Not to mention allies just kept doing their scheduled bombing operations behind the front among other things. So no, weather was bad but air force on either side wasn't grounded as the myth (and another movie classic "Battle of the Bulge") tells us.
Thanks for your comment. You probably never heard about it since you don't have a YT comment section with daily comments on a few hundred videos. This one was prominent, and I've seen it in a few other places too plus had it said to me. I will pin your comment so others can benefit from clearing up any potential misunderstanding.
Since I state overall losses plus the percentage it accounts for compared to the total force, I don't believe that the context is lost. But that is probably dependent on how to interpret the numbers vis-a-vis the presentation. Could you quickly tell me which books you refer to for Wacht am Rhein? I'd be interested.
@Bismarck
Well, I can't disagree with you on that. Being a less public person it is just natural. I do however can easily tie those recent comments to the way that Steel Division: Normandy 44 have portrayed quite a few things - including the luftwaffe's presence in that game.
As for losses - YES and NO. I mean, you were answering people that had little idea of how the situation looked in the air in early-mid '44 (as you have to know yourself, luftwaffe's inability to properly respond among many other things was the drawn out softening campaign carried out by bomber formations and fighter patrols all over france for months prior to invasion - and strafing B-17 formations was a hazardous task to undertake) - people who have little idea on what the state of atlantik wall was too (hey, here's an actual myth when u think about it - AW in modern media is often portrayed as fearsome set of unbreakable coastline fortifications which allied both bypassed [in terms they have not attacked pas-de-calais] and pushed through with superior tactics, resolve & firepower [vel Omaha] - where in truth in some places there were only 'token' fortifications even in normandy area - so here's a myth that's still cultivated) or either what germany had in france at this time (and how long it took for those formations to reach normandy thanks to allied air superiority and interdiction campaign). So yes, the context might not have been lost to most but you could mention that the losses were coming from all the sources - german fighter actions, flak kills or even rare occurrences of malfunctions and bad navigation.
Still, if I came across in a negative way - I apologize. I think I'm a subscriber for 3rd or 4th year so I do value your work - especially in times when so many media takes things out of context and puts those things into their work/products skewing the truths in the end. (:
Hussar Oh no, you didn't. I actually enjoy comments such as yours!
It is sometimes hard to place yourself in the eye of the viewer. When I put information into my script/video, I try to look at it from an uninformed viewpoint and ask myself if I am clear and where someone could misunderstand what I say. At the same time the scope and depth of the video need to be well-matched.
Considering that I 'know' the context of all given information, sometimes it can happen that some things are unclear to those that don't see the information in the same light as me. So getting feedback on where it was unclear helps a lot for future videos. For example, now I made a mental note to be clearer on the causes of shot down aircraft in future videos, perhaps by adding a sentence or note, because I can see where you are coming from.
So, in short, thank you! :)
you are a role model for youtube comments across the world.
@Bismarck
I'm glad then you're cool about this then. A lots of people nowadays can't hold an argument of any kind, so yeah. And I understand your point completely. Exactly for this reason I have reacted about the allied losses as it could give a bad impression to those who're not informed at all, possibly giving an impression that german pilots were that good to be shooting allies left and right like so - especially to people who're new to your channel. Hence why.
Anyway, I still have enjoyed this sort of content - so if you were thinking about doing another "myth" video - go for it! A few good ideas for myths to debunk I have already mentioned, though I bet you knew of them yourself. A "battle of the bulge" debunk I think would be the most interesting as it's possibly one of the better grounded ww2 myths.
The German troops during the battle of Normandy had this joke :
"If you see a white plane, it's American"
"If you see a black plane, it's British."
"If you don't see nothing, it's the Luftwaffe."
And that's a great one ! :D
Small correction, The American was the white (no camouflage) and the British the black.
Or this one:
The Red Army will never take Berlin
If they see the poor defense, they will die of laughter.
So berlin will be save.
A similar joke I've heard is "If you see a silver planes they're American, if you see a green planes they're Russian, and if you no planes they're German."
Momo mimi Ooops. Thanks for the correction.
Regarding German humor: there's a German stand-up comedian (yes, really!) who thanks the RAF for flattening German cities so he can enjoy living in more modern housing than the British do. He also jokes that: "Hitler wasn't so bad. He killed Hitler, after all".
Colin Dunnigan quality jokes. Gonna steal them ;)
Ja, for you der var its over.
Aghilas Merkel better get her shit together.
Colin Dunnigan
Who is this comedian?
whats his name, i wanna check him out, hope its not all german spoken tho lol
German humor is no laughing matter.
Thats right were beautifully black bile fuckers
Vat do you call flying jude? Smoke!
Angel Corral SovietWomble?
No? Just me?
Nick Wunderlich Did u knooooow....
Angel Corral Cyanide ZF for live
From what i learnt from Steel Division Normandy 1944. Running a express root of Bf109 dropping bombs non stop
The Iron Armenian aka G.I. Haigs not funny
The Iron Armenian aka G.I. Haigs 10/10 historical accuracy. would spam again
The Iron Armenian aka G.I. Haigs What about russian bias in war thunder? ex dee dee
Steel division really is such a breath of fresh air though.
inch?
I love hearing Germans say "Luftwaffe".
me tooo ❤️
love the way you put it - speaking with data. raw facts, no bullshit.
Cheers
Spasiboy data doesn't always tell the full story, if your flying about never seeing any opposing aircraft you become complacent,then when one does turn up out of the blue your caught off guard and more likely to get shot down because of said complacency. plus the fact your attacking rather than defending so it's not just aircraft you have to contend with but also ground based anti aircraft counter measures. it's common wisdom that if your attacking against a well defended opponent you need around 4 times the numbers to take that objective if both forces are equally well trained and equipped... defence is always easier than attack and that's generally not specifically aerially speaking, theres more to it than pure numbers when it comes to air defence... otherwise Britain wouldn't have won the battle of Britain, germany had more pilots and were producing more aircraft but they a failed regardless...because... other factors... like a superior integrated radar defence plan
Spasiboy I
He's German, he's efficient
its RAAAAAW!
Wait a second... this isnt Military History Visualized.
Guess I'll just have to sub to this one, too.
My glorious comrade Stalin, but your channel shoud be *Binkov's Battlegrounds* ;)
go to gulag
Joseph Stalin gets exiled to Siberia*
comrade show them the true meaning of nkvd crush the capitalism :P
This Video right befor the DCS Normandy release, ty bis
Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell ?
A Flemish Stacker your comment is just perfect
Where was Gondor when my s... (trails off)
You forgot the pre invasion aircraft losses ,
Luftwaffe losses were actually 75% total across the fighter & bomber squadrons
Great content! I'm fairly new to your channel but loved it at first sight! Keep up the good work!
My uncle was a US paratrooper. He jumped on D-Day, and later at The Bulge. Purple Heart with two flashes. Thank you for sharing this information.
War is not romantic. May it become a thing of distant memory.
Well, it all became realitiy once again in ukraine.
@@aciiks You sure got that right, everything's just getting worse as though people have learned nothing from the past. So tragic.
I hadn't even thought of the Luftwaffe on D-Day (and as someone who is studying to be a history teacher, that's embarrassing). This is a video I didn't know I needed (or wanted) to watch, and now I'm going to have to watch that movie about the two German pilots. This was great. Strong work.
Ya. Didnt understand a thing at 3:49 😂
The Luftwaffe was scattered all over the fields of Europe.
Usually in piles of burnt wreckage or smoking craters.
+rotorheadv8 It seems weird to bring that end when the Luftwaffe has such a high kill to death ratio
James White they had no shortage of targets. Butnthey had a shortage of planes on flying condition.
James n
Simply put...A Great Series of Videos!
Keep up the good work and history lessons Bismarck.
WoW, I've been searching for information regarding this for quite some time. So glad I found this video! Thank for uploading!
Wow, that they were able to run that many missions in a sky full of Allied aircraft is impressive.
My Dad was a radioman on a B-24 and they flew 3 sorties on June 6th starting at 4:30am and ending around 8pm. Their mission was to take out enough rail, bridges and roads to delay the German reinforements from reaching the beach.
Q: Did pilots doing "gun runs" actually get that low, or is that just the mechanics of the game? I've seen A-10s in a strafe and they stay a few hundred feet above the ground. Is that a difference in technology, tactics, doctrine. Or is it just "the game"?
Lee Fonz 50 cals u have to get closer vs 30mm gats on a10.
it is il-2, the most realistic flight simulator .....beats DCS XD anyway back in the day the used ammo was smaller in calibre and slower firing mechanism which means you must get closer to attack unarmored vehicle also to get accurate gunsight indication the distance between you and your target must be 0.4 kilometer
Fascist Canuck that's the closest to an answer I'll probably get, yes 12.7mm is a smaller round than 30mm. But it is still deadly out to 1000m. Looking back this was a stupid question, kinetic vs explosive
you are the moron here, think twice before typing a comment ....i am talking about IL-2 sturmovik flight simulator, the game that is featured in the first seconds of the video ...a game that i have been playing since 2006 till today ....you use guns against trucks ..motorcycles ....kubel cars and such ....bomb and rockets for armoured vehicles ...bombs are preferred to be droped on stationary vehicles each weapon requires different approach manuvers tactics and good observation and planning according to your surroundings so guns was best ...400 meters ...easy dive ....your only fear is enemy shooting back or crashing into the ground .....and for your information they used guns to attack ground targets for sure....why fire away an expensive ordnance while you can penetrate a less armoured car, bullets are enough to make a hole in the driver's head...and in the soviet union there is no field for "dropin' fire works in the neighbourhood"
Jedi Champion Fenn Vectorpulse What the fuck are you trying to say? And who are you trying to say it to? I'm assuming English isn't your primary language, and if it is, you need to go back to school
Excellent video. The Luftwaffe were certainly fighting against the odds. That made their valiant efforts all the more heroic. Let's just hope we never see such a waste of life and resource ever again. Peace & Respect from the UK Bro.
Excellent video thank you for putting this together.
Who makes a map on which blue represents a land mass and grey represents water?
Maury - the map he's referring to is the one at 0:43
A german
Gillian Orley THANK YOU!!
Lol
Gillian Orley well it’s understandable that Americans suck so much in geography that they NEED blue to represent water if not Africa would be the Pacific Ocean
I never knew a fraction of what you presented here. I always thought as you said that they did very little. Thanks for correcting that misunderstanding. Great instructional content. :-)
Danke :)
Thank you for your research. I read some of the comments and it is very clear that passions still run high over this conflict...all these years later.
Thanks for posting these videos, I am a huge history buff and enjoy them immensely.
excellent video as always Bismarck! It's clear that a lot of work and time went into this. thank you for that!
Many Miles Away Thank you, happy to hear that you liked it.
Bismarck as a content creator myself I know good content when I see it o7
Excellent video this REALLY helped me on my report!
Quality content, as usual. It is interesting to note that Priller is used not only for the movie anecdote, but as a source.
Excellent video! You answered a question I have had for a long time.
That was actually super interesting, thanks
Also for those that don’t know, I know you all understand that 50% casualties is a lot, but that is the kind of ratio that drives forces to surrender, it’s and absolutely insane casualty rate that is almost impossible to come back from
And where was the RAF during the battle of France in 1940 ?
Victor Gastine probably at home an good thing they weren't in France when you brought out the white flag
Jonathan Car show Yep, probably but maybe the help of the RAF could have contained the german advance, maybe english and french could have thought and reogarnized troops who were completely crush by the Luftwaffe on the frontline.
Victor Gastine yea but you have to think the British didn't really care for the French losing they were safe same as the French with Poland in 1939 they could of attacked the Germans while they had their entire army in the east could of easily won the war right there they outnumbered them by alot but chose to wait for the germans to attack them if any French general read the art of war you would know they weren't gonna go through the Magino line
Jonathan Car show Lot of mistakes thats for sure, especially the inaction of SOD (not sure of the name in english). But the UK was actually in France with the army and at the time if the french lost against Germany the UK would be alone in the war. And at the beginning of the war french army was one of the biggest so that was not an ally to overlook don't u think ?
Victor Gastine actually, the RAF were competent in the battle of france. It was the french air force that was pitiful.
OMG I love listening to you switching between german and english so fluently. Toll!
Always like your informative historical video, many thanks!
The real answer is short and sweet. By the time D-day was launched the allies had clear air superiority. The Luftwatte was quickly destroyed and sent packing.
i always wondered where was the the German air force during all of this, very good, straight to the facts, +1 like and +1 subscriber!
Really interesting video again!
A sound researched contribution supporting a recreational presentation. Many thanks!
The only reason people think the Germans have no sense of humour is because jokes don't translate well from German to English and vice versa. It's a language thing.
Example:
English: Three men walked into a pub.
German: Non youthful males of course entered the pub with walking.
I visited Germany only 2 months ago. I really liked the German people. Their humour is fine, the language barrier does indeed foul a punchline. I'll return for another visit.
Germans are very efficient with their humor that it takes a German to understand them
Drei Männer sind zu der Kneipe gegangen
smaragdschloss X I don’t know if you’re just joking or incredibly ignorant
I think it should be pointed out that Allied medium bombers had torn up the German air bases in France. The B-26's in particular had the mission to render the air bases inoperable. While most air bases had grass strips, the support structures, fuel storage etc. were systematically destroyed and the fields cratered. The Allies knew the Germans had pulled most of their aircraft back to Germany and would move them back into France after the invasion, so they made it more difficult to re-activate the fields by bombing them extensively.
Thank you for this very informative and interesting video!
thanks. subbed based on two of your brilliant videos
and your german is perfect
German humor last years of the war. "If it is brown, it is British. If it is metallic, it is American. If it is invisible, it is ours."
It reminds me of another joke in German army, "Optimistic officers learn English, pessimists learn Russian"
@@hussey4826 And realists keep cyanide pills in their pockets.
Where was the Luftwaffe? Same place as the overwhelming majority of German troops... back east trying to stop the unstoppable Soviet war machine.
Yeah, war machine, it's more like dead machine with 24m of dead people.
A year late, but the vast majority (3 quarters) of all German aircraft were lost on the Western front. The Luftwaffe was crushed trying to vainly stop the strategic bombing campaign.
Unstoppable because of the American lend-lease program.
Awesome and informative video. I lol'ed at MVH mentioning on his live feed this morning that people think you and him are the same person!
love the detail...you got another subscriber!
where was gondor?
A fantastic history lesson on a rather in my opinion unknown part of the Normandy landings. I learned new stuff from this video that I never knew of before.
Thank you :)
Excellent narration. Including some contemporary quotes in the original German is a nice touch.
Holy shit, I didn't expect to see IL-2 1946 footage in 2017. I salute you for your excellent taste in sims!
The Allies had complete control of the air that day.
The luftwaffe was longtime destroyed by this time of the war, and the remaining pilots show no intention of dying in suicide missions against hundreds of allies planes.
What is your source that the Luftwaffe pilots did not attempt to resist the invasion?
Good video and great commentary.
Awesome vid, thanks! Subscribed!!!
I feel like a Bismarck vid along similar lines about Operation Bodenplatte would be pretty interesting!
It's on the list :)
Thanks for the reply, I'll look forward to it! :)
My father was a member of the bridge crew of LST 496. He stated the they only saw 2 german aircraft D-day. Both were at high altitude and made only on pass. It seemed obvious the the Allied air forces had taken care of the German air defence.
I mean my father was in the U. S. Navy on LST 496.
He saw 2 German airplanes on D-day.
Yes the British air force did much damage.
But the U.S. air force did tremendous damage to the infrastructure of Germany and it's defensive air force.
By 1942 the British had suffered huge loses. They could not do day time bombing raids & the fighter corp could only do defensive tactics.
In 1974, while visiting my aunt in London, I meet Jimmy James. A British fighter pilot. He had great first hand accounts. I was just smart enough to listen & take notes.
In 1987 I meet a German pilot while I traveling in China. ( Yangshuo, China, on the Li river south of Guilin) I listen to him (took notes) for 2 days & nights of the stories. He said that the British pilots were the best, but the American pilots just keep coming. They seemed to keep coming without end. He told me the it took 8 Russian airplanes shot down to equal 1 British as credit toward ace.
Yes the British fighter pilots of the battle of Britain were exceptional, the Americans just over whelmed the Germans with numbers. Remember he said the British were the best.
My father said they saw 2 German aircraft that day.
1 week later, 1/2 of his LST 496 crew were killed by a mine while crossing the English Chanel with 25 Serman tanks as cargo.
As for Fascist, I fight them.
Like the sign on Woody Guthrie's guitar, 'This Machine Fights Fascist!'
You must be a hateful MF!
Have you traveled the world & meet other people?
Take your head out of your Arse. There are good & intelligent people all over the world & you are superior to none. Study history and educate your ignorant self.
an educate, open minded, traveled Farmer from West Tennessee,
Joe Walker
ps, I too fight Fascist!
J Walker You I like you, fuck fascists.
Right, Fuck Fascists.
Get sober, idiot..
Awesome Man. Great work
An excellent commentary on the air war in Normandy.
1 fighter vs 13 ? Poles on Battle of Britan would not be impressed...
Also where was the Luftwaffe when the Bismarck was being attacked
out of range.
Wasn't the Bismarck sunk somewhere near Russia? I mean they were stranded as far as I know due to heavy damage to their engine after repelling multiple attacks so they were unable to move elsewhere safely.. And out of range for any potential reinforcements
No, it sunk off the coast of France.
What German ship was stranded near Russia than? I belief 1 of their Battleships was sunken near them and it was quite a important one.. I really thought it was the Bismarck
I think that was the Scharnhorst .
A description with your mods in Il-2 1946 will be nice. Great video keep it up. Danke
*Amazing!!!Keep working bros!!!Liked&shared*
hello
"1v30? Looks like rain today, better stay home."
Bonus on german humour:
How many germans does it take to screw a light bulb?
Answer:
ONE! They are very efficient and have no sense of humour!
Danke für das gute Video!
good information, i enjoyed your production
And everybody was asking tue obvious question: Where was the Luftwaffe?
well, bis tells you
The Allies ran a series of baiting missions prior to the launch of D-Day to degrade the Luftwaffe. By all accounts it was a fairly successful campaign.
Great video as always Bismarck ......Would love you to do 1 on the Battle of Britain
Great vid, very informative, thanks.
German pilot respond to German airfield conrtol tower orders to him in English by saying back:
this is a german airplane landing in german airfield in Germany Why we have to speak in english?
An old British voice of a pilot replied: 'cause you lost the bloddy war!
In the on line simulator COMBAT FLIGHT SIMULATOR I was a teacher at the Joint Operations Flight School (set up by actual pilots who were grounded by the ravages of multiple scherosis) and a squadron leader in JG26...so I got very interested in the background history.
The picture the author of this channel paints is very realistic. Luftwaffe pilots were overworked and gave very good account of themselves.
One of the most impressive pieces of Luftwaffe history I read was the backstory of the fighter unit which flew top cover for the Me-262 jets which needed a lot of runway to get airborne and land. They flew and were the evaluators of the D series of Focke Wulf which had the highest performance of any of the propeller driven aircraft in the Luftwaffe. Their distinctive livery included barber pole red and white stripes on the underside of their planes so that they would not be shot down by their own air defence gunners. In order to qualify for that squadron you had to have at least 100 kills in a Focke Wulf.....the qualifying list read like three pages in a phone book.
Excellent briefing - thank you.
Germany's defeat was all but certain before D-Day even happened....
Where was the Luftwaffe after 1943.
Clorox Bleach Lemon Fresh being worn down to extinction on all fronts.
Where is Luftwaffe nowadays
Great video, well explained...
Josef Priller, the luftwaffe pilot (played by Heinz Reincke) was actually involved in the making of the film The Longest Day.
Freefousand and fifty free
The Battle of Britain alone shows how weak the German air force was....despite we being a tiny island and Germans having better technology
Jack the lad they didn’t have a weak air force but a terrible leader
Technology was kinda on par
Curious on your opinion, but if Britain was a small island then what was Malta during its siege?
XD
That is a remarkable work of research! Congratulations :)
Good synopsis and I like the Deutsch/English mix, thanks.
Are you german? If not, I m proud that you pronounced the german words perfect! :D
you obviously are german, because you are using german books as sources.
Jesus christ your german accent is so german i though you were literally speaking german at some times....
TheGamingParadise he was !
I know he was german, im just saying his english kinds sounds like hes speaking german at some times
Love The Longest Day and this is a great video. I always wanted to know where any of the German fighters were. Nice job!
Great Video!!!
Germany was too busy trying to kill as many civilians as possible in London than to worry about trifling things like a massive military build up in southern England and the DDay landings - to the eternal relief of Allied commanders. this includes the V weapons that were hurled against London
Many civilians were killed in Germany too my friend. As a Brit I think it's important that we remember that and not look back with rose tinted glasses and favouritism.
All sides committed atrocities in the war, there should never be exceptions
Andrew Manche no war would have happened if France Britain and America didn’t give a bullshit treaty to Germany after ww1 a war they didn’t even start
Andrew Manche well yea and getting revenge on France which was understandable but the whole trying to wipe out others is unnecessarily rude
@Andrew Manche that's a stretch. Sebrenica. People Love being asshats, it just is what it is
The movie "Dunkirk" will come to Theatres soon .. another Luftwaffe Failure !
Who was holding the Ardenne ?
Whiteyy191 well they didn't have Monty yet oh nm that wouldn't of helped idk who let him plan an operation called market garden but that's the real guy to blame not Monty
as Squire would say "pushed their way bravely over the channel and decisively in to england"
Not really. While it would have been a big moral failure, it would have done little to nothing to help Germans invade England The reason Germans couldn't do so was due primarily to Royal Navy which wasn't affected, it also had no effect on the Battle of Britain.
It was a moral victory primarily which was important though.
Hitler: "My stomach starts to revolt, when I am thinking about to fight the British, they are so similar to us..."
Maybe Dünkirchen was a great gesture?....
Great info. and very interesting. Worth subscribing to. 10/18/2018 .
Thank You...
So it's you who does Military History Visualized Bismark? I knew your IL2 vids and that channel separately. These vids are really top stuff and informative. Great work.
FlyingNutcase We are two different people but collaborate on many projects.
The brave American bombers and their escorts had already taken care of most of the luftwaffe; if it wasn't for American daylight bombing runs, the invasion would have probably been impossible. If they had succeeded the invasion, they probably wouldn't have made it very far inland. The bombers had been bombing factories and so forth for a while before the invasion.
What is your opinion on the Wehrmacht ? Would you say that "honoring" the Wehrmacht is controversial or would you say that its ok and that honoring the Soldiers of the Wehrmacht is justified.
Imho it's totally okay to honor the Soldiers of the Wehrmacht.
What people tend to mix is the SS and the Wehrmacht. The Wehrmacht was not different from the American or English Army.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Wehrmacht
@smsteve888 well those are truths that can't be denied but we do see pictures of US Soldiers pissing on Jihadists and putting it on the internet. My point is: while we cant deny the fact that the Wehrmacht was involved in the Holocaust and execution of other Soldiers, how different was it compared to other Armys? were they all shiny and glorious or is it just how war is and is there even "honor" involved with war.
The Wehrmacht had more than enough hardcore fascists, and they did their part in war crimes. Remember that many of the Einsatzgruppen of the SS used Wehrmacht soldiers to support their operations. Also, German Feldjäger units were used to round up Jews and other people in warzones for either immediate execution or transport to concentration camps (and they often participated in the executions themselves).
>while we cant deny the fact that the Wehrmacht was involved in the Holocaust and execution of other Soldiers, how different was it compared to other Armys
Being complicit in genocide isn't a good enough distinction for you? You answered your own question there.
Some of the shit the US has been up to has been fucked, for sure, but why should I be finding honor in abu ghraib? I already don't. Multiply the gravity of that by over 100 and turn the war that was being fought into
unabashed ideological war of conquest and extermination and you can bet I'm not going to speak highly of the US army under those circumstances and think fighting for that cause is at all honorable.
Lovely to see a WWII history video with proper german pronunciation, makes it more interesting, and for those we enjoy german stuff in war, it's great.
Excellent analysis
You could have mentioned the reason there were so few Luftwaffe in the area. The Germans fell for the Allies disinformation program regarding where the invasion would take place.
German humor isn't funny. Nien out of ten people don't find it funny
Smaugs Wrath how many germans do you know?
elgringo8585 Two. Both were foreign exchange students.
You just answered literally the question I had after playing both CoDWW2 and War Thunder
By D-Day keeping any planes flying (for the Luftwaffe) was what might be called an Herculean task. The fact that they stayed flying "bis zum letzten Tage" was a tribute to the ground crews and other related personnel.
Makes NO difference, the allies kicked the shit out of the axis powers, now that is a true fact,
Terenin Details mean nothing now, only at the time. The details are why we kicked Germany's ass.
Robert Brockway so wrong
SchwitzKnecht _ The war is over and the allies kicked the fuck out of the axis powers, now that is a fact and the only one that counts.
Robert Brockway If the Soviet Union never joined the allies, America and Britain would've been obliterated by the Germans alone. Joseph Stalin didn't like the Allied Powers for political reasons, but he still decided to join the allies, so thanks to Russia, we aren't speaking German. The soviet Union sheded the most blood for justice, who are the real hereos?
Soljakirk Wrong dumb ass, Without our supplies to Russia,they would have gone nowhere but down.
well made, nice video.
EXCELLENT PRESENTATION , SIR
great video
Wanna know something? "Operation Boudenplatte".
Operation Bodenplatte was coined "The battle that killed the Luftwaffe". Planes were all being sent back across France and back to Germany or Belgium for regrouping once the Allies had landed on Normandy and mind you, D-Day wasn't just a day affair but an event that went on for several days, closing to a week in total. Not only were they caught offguard, the planes were mainly already dragged towards the Eastern Front. Plus with the Allies ever encroaching into France, the best bet is to pull out planes that are intact and regroup them into a new strategy that is Operation Bodenplatte which would actually be triggered on January 1945 rather than the planned December.
Bodenplatte was deliberately planned to take place during the early morning of New Year's Day. Luftwaffe top brass expected the "decadent" Yanks and Brits to be "too hungover to fight." Things didn't turn out the way they planned, and a great many irreplaceable pilots and aircraft were lost. Allied losses were made up in a matter of several days to a couple of weeks; Luftwaffe losses, on the other hand, were utterly unsustainable.
To make matters even worse, German flak batteries inflicted heavy losses on those aircraft that managed to survive and return. The flak units had not been informed of the very secret operation, and thus automatically assumed that the approaching large formations must be an Allied attack force. They took a terrible toll, and only ceased firing once they could visually identify the aircraft as German.
All in all, Bodenplatte effectively ended the Luftwaffe as a cohesive fighting force. After that, it was only able to send up small numbers at a time to contest Allied air superiority over virtually all of Germany. It was the greatest defeat the Luftwaffe ever suffered.