‘Baby Cages’: The rehabilitation Camps of the Hitler Youth I SLICE HISTORY | FULL DOCUMENTARY
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2024
- In 1945, Hitler continued to deny the apparent defeat that awaited him. In a final insane attempt to turn the tide of the war and make up for the lack of soldiers old enough to go into battle, he recruited massively from among the Hitler Youth, enlisting children as young as 12 years old. These little soldiers were sent to fight battles that they had no hope of winning. Nonetheless, as a rule, they fought zealously. As the Allied troops advanced, they were shocked to discover that there were also children among the countless German prisoners.
Around 10 000 of these young fighters, who were both persecutors and victims, would be taken prisoner by the American Army and sent to Attichy POW camp in France. The Nazi Regime had trained these children. Yet, astonishingly, the Americans immediately considered and treated them as victims. An original and little-known re-education program started at Attichy Camp to steer them towards an attitude of tolerance and democracy. It was called "Baby Cages". Winfried Börsch was held there. At the time, he was 16 years old.
Today, he'll tell us how he ran away and got arrested before being sent to the "Baby Cages". His experience reflects the fate of thousands of other child soldiers. His testimony along with numerous archive images will take us deep into the heart of Nazi indoctrination and the ensuing liberation of the minds of these young children, who had been forced into being a part of a devastating system.
Documentary: Baby Cages
Directed by: Marie Börsch
Production: Les Films en Vrac pour Toute l’Histoire
#documentary #freedocumentary #history #worldwarII #children #teenagers #soldiers
So many of these young children didn't have a choice in joining the Youth Brigade. It is a lesson we need to remember
The SS were all graduates of Hitler Youth.
They wuz guuud bois
Unfortunately UNWRA schools have been teaching kids the same thing only much worse,it's been going on for years and has yet to stop. They also start encouraging killing and unaliving themselves from birth.
I knew one who was living on his sailboat in the Florida Panhandle mid 1980's with his family...immigrated to USA after the war and was a retired brick mason from Chicago
At the same time, some of these young children were also the most ardent nazi's, with the typical "flame of Youth".
"Wir sind die Fackelträger der Nation...." as is written on a statue at Camp Vogelsang, once a Hitler Jugend camp, today a museum I have visited with my last brother and my then 90plus year old father a few years ago (both died last year). My Belgian father was stationed in 1945 in Vogelsang as part of the occupying forces, he was 20 years old then.
My great grandfather was one of these boys. He was sent out as a soldier. He refused to shoot a small child and was thrown in a work camp for disobedience. He was rescued not long after. He moved to America after that. My mom said he wore long sleeves to hide his tattoo and only spoke about his experience while drunk.
His supervisor shot the child so she didn't get away.
We read. But the facts are hard to understand. My German family, spoke of this. My Father who has only recently, talked of boys young as 10😢😢😢😢😢. He has 5 great grandchildren around this age. And he constantly tells me, it haunts him. He never sleeps from the nightmares. Protect the young. They are innocent and vulnerable, whilst hard to listen to, we must, or it as we all say lost to oblivion. My Father, passed his torment via his mental instability, to us, I think you can have generational trauma, even though you’re not involved. Yet. War still drives us to cruelty against thy neighbours. 😢😢😢😢😢😊😊
@@Yorkshirelass727I prayed n hope those Baby cages(boys) were not sexually abused for favors n food, (@25 mins, sexual trade betwn those paedos American soldiers) That would be truly tragic for many young baby Germans boys who survived but was too distraught to talk abt it. Typical paedos/evil exist then too. That's why they called it baby cages!!!
During the war my grandmother lived on a farm which had German 'soldiers' interned in 1944. They were children, crying for their mom, without socks in their too large crude boots. With a corporal not older than 18 himself overseeing them. My grandmother could not see the enemy at that moment. So she knitted socks for the young boys before they were sent off to the Ardennen.
Your grandmother had a good heart. These young boys were no doubt victims themselves.
The young soldiers were NOT the enemy. They never are. It’s the powers that be that are. Most just are forced or do it for survival themselves.
@@BarbaraJikai that is awful . Such barbarism. I do not know as many would also feel, how an earth they survived. I often think why humans inflict so much cruelty to mankind. No answers come, and I have to let go, Bless those sous who did small mercies, for the greater deed
Bless her heart ❤❤❤
@@BarbaraJikai our village in the UK had a POW camp and the prisoners there although older teens and young men rather than boys had a good reputation in the village after the war. A mother of one of the POWs sent a letter thanking the village for looking after him.
I met a man who was a young teenager in the Hitler Youth. As the war progressed the state decided to assign all these young men to different trades. He was fortunate to be too young to be assigned to combat duties.
They were lined up and an official walked down the line reading the trade the young man had randomly been assigned. Reading from the list the man pointed to the teenagers and told him his new occupation.
The boy beside my friend was told he was now a carpenter. He objected and said he didn't want to be a carpenter. The official walked back to him and punched him in the head full force. The boy fell over unconscious and the official continued down the line assigning trades. Needless to say no one else objected to the trade the Nazi state assigned them.
The man I knew was told he was a painter. It was a trade that supported him his entire life. He immigrated to Canada where he started a successful painting business. He recalled these events with laughter and not a trace of bitterness.
My grandmother lived in a very rural part of the UK, where German POWs were held during the War to help on the farms. The POWs were allowed to take themselves between their barracks and the farms without escort, so chatted with the locals a lot. My Nan said she remembered two Germans in particular- one was an older, rather "out of condition" man who'd also served in WW1. He was very genial, basically saw the locals as his equals as he came from a similar rural community back home. I suspect he was rather glad to be spending his War pottering around the English countryside. But this man was always accompanied by a skinny, surly blonde youth. The younger man had grown up with the indoctrination and despite the rather cosy hospitality they received locally, the young man couldn't bring himself to even look these "enemies" in the eye. He seemed disgusted by the very presence of the locals, they were clearly not up to his Aryan standards, and he refused to speak to them. My grandmother said his eyes were blank, like there was nothing behind them. Every ounce of humanity had been stripped from him and a vague, futile hatred left in it's place. My Nan (being only young herself) was very frightened of this "programmed robot" at the time and made a point to avoid him, but as the years passed she'd clearly looked back and felt sorry for him.
I grew up with that story so I've always been curious about those young boys. They were victims of the regime too.
Notice the similarities with brainwashed musllm youngsters, living in our modern liberal societies ... 🙈
My mother was in the Land Army and also worked alongside German POW's, many, as you said, ordinary folks. My mum was frowned on a little, because she treated them as humans. I remember her telling me that "they were just like your father, sent to war because that was how it was." The real Nazis were held under much closer guard, with many staying much longer in the UK to be de-radicalised. I find it hard to get over the fact that one man with insane ideas found others willing to go along with it, creating one of the worst situations the world has ever found itself in. Lest we forget, indeed.
@@sheilaboston7051 One of the local girls fell in love with one of the POWs and moved back to Germany with him after the War. An English guy who had a crush on her was so devastated he shot himself. The War had victims far beyond the casualty lists ☹️
An older friend was taken from school at 12 to serve in the German army. He was sent to the Russian front. He was captured by Americans and eventually went to live with an American family. He said there was an entire ship full of young former German soldiers headed to the US
12:12
As an American all we've been taught, which was little, was that Germany and Nazis were bad. But mostly taught about what happened to the Jewish people.
I ashamedly never thought about what happened to Germans after the war, people who opposed Nazi rule. Thank you for bringing this to light. I have a new interest in finding information about what happened to the country and the people during that time My mother's family is from West Germany but everyone slowly left to be with the family members who came to America before WW2, I believe it was over political reasons but not sure.
My mothers parents parents (my great grandparents) came over before ww1 because they didn't agree with the political climate. Things looked like there was going to be another war and they left. But I still wonder what happened to their family members who stayed behind.
I read “The Book Thief”. It’s a book about those who were citizens in Germany during WWII.
About 15:00 min. playtime: The kid under interrogation is not German, but rather he is Hungarian, still in his first semester in a cadet school. They were not given yet arms, only some marching exercises and so forth. His German, which was mandatory language at the school, is still quite rudimentary, it's still mixed with his native Hungarian.
You are absolutely right! Never the less this film-sequence is used since decades for anti german propaganda. To "proove" that Hitler used child soldiers in combat. Thanks for your comment, this was very important to say!
@@lacertabilineata9337 Thanks for the positive response. What we can surely agree, that the war was a tragedy for all European nations, but particularly among the Central European nations. Peace be with you effendi!
Wotan, who says they are German ?
The subject of this documentary says they are German. Hitler Youth=German. Duh.@@lucasrem
Thanks for clearing that up. I was wondering if the translator just had too thick of an accent for the kid to understand his German.
My heart breaks for those boys. They grew up under the Nazis, went to Nazified schools, were required to be in the Hitler Youth. There minds were messed with from a young age. Yet they were still boys. I'm 62, but if I'd been a teenage boy in Berlin in 1945, it would have been so exciting, and scary, to be manning the antiaircraft guns, being all "grown up". A man's boyhood is an important part of his life, and their boyhoods were poisoned, stolen from them.
And nobody to blame but their own government.
In one town they also herded ALL French civilians (including women, children and babies) into a church and burned them alive. Those who tried to escape through the windows were shot.
NOT SO BLOODY INNOCENT.
No they were cruel and barbaric as a result of their training and education.
@@Capochin950 I have met young people who do not know how we would think of children. I can't imagine any men I know being like that, but they must have been ordinary.
@@0ldb1ll I didn't mean to imply that. They were made into monsters, they weren't given a chance to be boys.
So glad someone finally made a doc about this. I’ve been doing research for around four years now on the HJ, and never got much info about their post-war experiences. Much thanks!
True. I need to read a few books on the subject too. I’ve been reading about all facets of WWII since I was 14 but this subject did not yet pass through my hands. Not easy to find.
I remember my mother (born in 1933) telling how shock and sad she felt when she first saw a young German soldier : his sleeves were longer than his arms, his shoes were too big and he couldn’t walk probably.
Yet the HJ had been submitted to such propaganda that many of them fought with « the energy of despair ».
My father, a Normandy veteran, recounted the fanaticism of the Hitler Youth (12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend) during the battle for Caen (June 1944).
The Russians said the Hitler Youth were fanatics, Red Army was pulling them out of manholes where they would pop up and shoot at them.
Those were SS units recruited from the hitler youth. The hitler youth was a mandatory organisation not fighting at the frontlines.
My dad was a WWII combat vet. He had a Silver Star, a Bronze Star 3 Purple Hearts and various other medals. From what little he talked about the war he said the Hitler Youth were some of the most dangerous soldiers.
There is a serious mix-up here: There was the 12th Panzer Division "Hitler Youth". These were Waffen-SS units. The normal Hitler Youth were comparable to boy scouts, they were minors, not soldiers. Every German boy had to join the Hitler Youth. “Air Force helpers” or “FLAK helpers” are yet another category. They operated the heavy anti-aircraft cannons to defend their city from air raids. All men were at the front, so these kids had to defend their town. They were minors, they were not soldiers and did not carry weapons. But their duty as anti-aircraft gunners was extremely dangerous and many of them didn´t survive.
Child soldiers always are...
@@lacertabilineata9337 my dad has been gone for several years and my memory might be bad but he said the child soldiers were very dangerous. The child soldiers were fanatics. Maybe it wasn't the Hitler youth but he did face soldiers that were teenagers.
@@anthonyfoutch3152 More lies were spread about no people in the world than about the Germans during the Nazi era! The minimum age for the army (SS or Wehrmacht) was 18 years and there was no exception! When your father talked about "child soldiers", he could only mean the "Volkssturm". These weren't soldiers, but a last contingent of civilians defending their hometown. They also had no military training. My uncle was a FLAK helper in Nuremberg when he was 15 years old. The FLAK helpers were all underage and had to shoot down aircraft with FLAK guns during air raids. They too were otherwise unarmed, had no military training and were not soldiers! The Americans didn't understand a lot of things, they mistook every uniform for a soldier's uniform (hunters, HJ, tram conductors...) and they had a "werewolf persecution mania".
Do you realize they said that to cope with the thought of killing children. On one of the veteran channels a US soldier talks about how he prepared to take out his first German tank after D-day, he trained for moths and expected to face combat experienced SS elite soldiers, he leaped up on the back of the tank using one of his satchel charges he took out the tank, later on when he inspected the wreck he was still after 70 years unable to continue telling his story visibly disturbed what he actually met while looking inside the tank, teenage boys. In those days they never heard of that so of cause after defeting the enemy going trugh the aftermath, they told themselfs that was a hell of a figh and that they fought like men, but as you can see from witness here most of them didnt even fire a gun.
I can’t get enough of the knowledge about WWII. What these children had to do for Hitler completely saddens me. I don’t know numbers on how many of the young men that led a life of destruction and violence. Just 1 would still be too many. I hoped they lived the best prosperous life possible.
It's not a mystery. Millions of children of both genders had to join the HJ. The history of both parts of Germany in the decades following WWII is well known and documented. If you read and watch it, the history of the former HJ and their own children is what you see, though just a small minority ever got some "re-education" as shown here, apart from memories, stories and own life-experience.
@@ottosaxoTraveling and living among Germans you'll still sense this hardcore socialising scheme three generations of Germans went through, due to first and second world war!
I can recomend a movie about the fate of nazi youth left behind in Denmark after ww2.
The name of the movie is "Land of Mines"
Very well researched documentary. So moving to hear this elderly man recounting that tragic part of his life. What a wonderful thing that his daughter came upon the idea of getting him to speak. Too many survivors of that period, German or otherwise, failed to share their memories and took them to the grave which is a huge loss for future generations. Let’s hope life brought him happiness to make up for the loss of his childhood and witnessing the treatment of his father at the hands of the Gestapo.
My father was a German living in Poland during the war. My grandfather was conscripted in the German Army when my father five years old. He never talked about it. I am grateful this daughter was able to get her father to talk. Mine never did.
I'm 74 and born right after the war. I knew Hitler was desperate in the last year of the war and drafted 15 year old's, but I had never heard of the POW "Baby cages" after the war. It makes sense, though. Trying to prevent the mistakes England and France made after WWI in 1919. That's what brought Hitler to power in the first place.
You don’t need to be defeated in a war for a demagogue grifter to rise to power. Germany escaped WW1 with little of the devastation they would experience later. Yet hatred and racism were used as an excuse to start a war. Appealing to the worst in humanity.
Berlin was defended by 13 year olds. (I worked with one of them in the 1980’s).
Another reason the boys were being separated out is because they were being raped by the
adult Nazi soldiers.
Amazing historical documentary. I never knew about this happening to German school age children. Thank you.
Russia does the same, even now. They have mandatory youth military "clubs" - indoctrination and fresh cannon fodder.
"Children have never befor been used in this way for military purposes"
Yes they have. During the crusades, an army of children where sent to fight in the holyland.
The Childrens Crusade was hardly an officially organised military expedition, but there are many examples of child warriors. Achilles was about 14 when he went to Troy, and child soldiers were the backbone of the revolutions in Africa of last centuries. A youth with a limited moral appreciation and a limited concept of the consequences of killing make deadly soldiers because they do not really know what they
are doing
British boy's aged 14 and 15 , lied about their age and fought in WW1 in the trenches.
The confederate Army during the American Civil War used teenagers and children in the infantry
They were not a "sent" army as they were not trained solders nor belonging to any organized military, kingdom or religious group. Also, they never made it to the holy land.
@@alecblunden8615 That is so correct.
My dad went into business with two men who were Hitler Youth, Jack Berger? Karl ??? The two men sold the business to my farther. They built a building in the back lot of the shop and machined Parts for VW's, Porches and Audi's. These men were the kindest most patient men that I've known my whole life. In 1970 the shop was called J&K Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi. The shop is still there on 4000 Fountain Ave Hollywood California.I will never forget Karl's hospitality and kindness he had a way of making everybody feel important. Jack had a beaming smile that put you at ease. My dad was a shit to these men, you would have never known it.
This was not the first time Germans used their youth for wars. My great-grandfather's parents sent him to the United States around 1880s because he was being forced into military service at the age of 9. His younger brother came later for the same age and for the reason.
Germany has a long history of warfare. Look up "Thirty Years War". This is why so many Germans came to the US starting in the 1700s.
Actually the most attractive societal status for generations of Germans were the military elite. Becoming an army officer had higher social status than the Imperial Elite.
Tells a lot about the basis for several generations of war hungry Germans willing to start two world wars ...
Thank you for saying this. A couple of male members of my family who were 18 & 20 at the time left West Germany for America at that time period. I've always wondered exactly why they'd leave home like that. I thought it might be for political reasons, maybe they were also being forced into military service and didn't want to as well
My Uncle was in France after the D-Day invasion. He was in the National Guard then activated for overseas duty. His unit took Nazi prisoners,including officers and Nazi youth.The Officers had a attitude, hard to get information out of them, real quiet and liked to smoke cigarettes. One Nazi Youth pulled a knife on my Uncle, who in turn, choked/unlived him. He was about 13 to 15 years old it surprised my Uncle that a "kid" was willing to fight even when captured.
Amazing. Well done. Glad to see this history preserved.
Meanwhile My great grandpa wasnt sent home till 1955 after ten years of working as a welder in Siberia and then killed in a train collision on his way back.
Imagine you stay a POW ten years after the war in which you were captured had ended.
@@TheSmokeGoblinMight be the case, at least they were offered the chance to survive, and make up for the insane evil they threw upon several millions of innocent civilians!
@@lisette2060 you think I don’t care about them? I’m simply stating the fuckeries my family ALSO went through.
@@lisette2060 my great grandfather was Volksturm - you should google what that is. Not SS.
Sad !!
What a statement " we where liberated and became prisoners of war"
How many of them were given to the russians to die in gulags?
Love this documentary ❤️. Thanks
A good book, “Save the Last Bullet: Memoir of a Boy Soldier in Hitler’s Army” by Heidi Langbein-Allen. He was a 14 yr Hitler Youth who ended up fighting against the Russians when they had reached Germany. He was lucky & ended up in a US POW camp. He was ill treated by an American soldier. He ended up serving as farm labor for 10 months. He was luckier than other POW soldiers who labored for 3 yrs in Fr coal mines. Very interesting to learn this German viewpoint.
I've heard from a veteran, way back in the 80's that a lot of these Hitler Youth were just "despatched"
Rehabilitation first, most cases i know were to sick, needing to travel a long way back home.
@@lucasrem Yes,but back then, in those radical days,therapy was out of the question
12th SS Hitler Jugend were fanatical,i remember seeing an interview of some British Commandos and they said they were forced to use the flamethrower on them,turning them into human torches,and it sickened the brit using it and he threw it away after that..
Very interesting and something I’d never before heard about. Thank you 🙏
A friend of my father was forced 1944 in a prisoner batallion at age 16- because of anti Nazi acting - was sent with 25 other young prisoner soldiers to the Rheinwiesen camps and they nearly starved to death. He had 3 choices in 1944:
1. Firing squad
2. Concentration camp
3. Prisoner batallion
What would your choice have been in this situation at age 16? . He chooses the only way to survive.
So.l, not all young prisoners were treated as victims by the US Army
The documentary moved me. Thank to presempt it on YT. From Italy
Thank you for presenting this history. These youngsters should not ever be forgotten.
Ah that little lad. Alles? He says like he couldnt believe that was all the questioning he was going to get from the Americans ❤😢
Thank you for sharing your Father's story with the rest of us. Blessings.
Mention of the segregation of the blacks from the whites during this period was a painful truth. As a very young person during those days I watched as Congress was in a turmoil about segregation to the point that the Southern Democratic Party actually walked out on their session in protest. In the very early 60's I took my wife and child on a car trip to FL to see friends. I believe it was Georgia where, being hungry, I pulled over to a "order to go" restaurant to buy some hamburgers and a very nice black gentleman waiting on me. He took my order and delivered it to me and off we went. All the while the food was being prepared I was aware that the man was staring at me in amazement, which I didn't challenge but certainly noticed. Otherwise my mind was blank as far as I can recall. As we drove away along this building, about 60-70 feet from where I got the food, there was another "to go restaurant" with a sign saying, "Negro window." The sign was pointed back to where I purchased our food. My first experience with segregation since I had black friends back home in Pa. and this was foreign to me.
That, ytoo was shameful!
It caused quite a turmoil in the UK when the Americans arrived. The British people treated their black servicemen the same as the white, but most of the latter couldn't handle that. It was also disgusting that, after the war, recognition of the skills/bravery of the black troops was extremely slow in coming.
Thanks for the in depth documentary about this subject. Subscribed.
Thank you so much for your support ☺
"Liberated by the Americans, and made prisoners of war" That seemingly nonsensical remark speaks volumes.
They were not enlisted, but conscripted.
For this reason he prepared the children for the war, in his last appearance MurloHitler gives medals and pats them on the cheek.
An excellent documentary...
Informative...
Enlightening...
Illuminating...
Thank you for involving your father...
🇿🇦
Now millions of children are experiencing so much worse. In many locations 😢😢
Those numbers are hard to fathom. 1 million missing in action. 😢
Thanks to America for protecting these children. Although conditions were tough, they were still kept safe, and life was far better than if abandoned to the wolves.
The French naturally wanted a hard punishment imposed on Germany. But the Americans went from wanting to utterly destroy Germany after discovering the concentration camps to wanting them as allies against the Soviet Union by 1947 and 1948.
The Marshall Plan raised the entire Western World to common wealth and democracy, while Moscow forced everyone in Eastern Europe into a depressing state of living.
@@lisette2060 You are from Norway, stop acting American.
None of these young teens had a choice! My uncle was about 14 or 15 years old when he was forced to be in the Hitler Jugend and as a prisoner of war was sent to Alabama, picking cotton for 1 year. He died in his 50‘s and I was too young to know about it.. I wish I had known, I would have asking him many questions.
I’m sorry, I clearly missed it but what was the significance with Verdun? Why did the two at the end react so shocked by that?
Verdun was the site of a horrific 10 month battle in 1916 fought to standstill between the French and Germans. I believe the German strategy was to 'bleed the French white'. The significance of it makes the shock understandable.
World War 1. Huge battles in France before the Americans arrived late in the war in 1918. Google "Verdun" and "Somme" Battles. Horrific. Can you imagine one million causalities in one battle? WWI wiped out a generation of British and French men. That's why they were so reluctant to get involved in another war 20 years later.
@@dfirth224 WWI also wiped out a generation of German men. And no, Germany did not "start" WWI. Do you think, Germans are no human beings?
@@user-do5ft8rr6sAnd again anti-german propaganda. Why do you mention this ugly "whitebleeding"? Do you think, the French were less hateful?
My husband is French - Verdun is the battle field they all know. It has a huge ossuary as there were too many deaths to know who was who.
Very sad history however at 16 minutes the boy being interviewed was in a military school. He was not a soldier.
You can see when he's talking about being a boy soldier the anxiety in his eyes and body movements, reliving those terrifying times and being such a young boy at that time, I'm really happy he survived to have a family and love 💕
Excellent video.
RS. Canada
"I fear we've defeated the wrong enemy." - General George S. Patton
Hey Bubba did you know that more Americans have been killed BY Americans in AMERICA than ALL the Americans killed in ALL the foreign wars combined that Americans have fought in,mainly thanks to the second amendment
Keep your propaganda nonsense for yourself!
Your sort of clowns would have been the first victims of the Aryan masters!
So the US recruited nazis post war.
Everyday we learn something new. I have never heard of these baby cages before. So sad
Children yes. But extremely fanatical and brainwashed
Children out of context - like encountering street children.
But neverthless children.
You are just lucky to be born later. That doesnt make u better an inch
@@Ex-MuslimMuhammad-o4d were not better because we're born later. We're better because, we're decent human beings who know how to love and how to forgive. We have empathy, compassion and kindness. I don't think you have one ounce of decency in your entire body. Forgiveness, kindness, mercy? You don't even know what those things are!
@@kelrogers8480 I guess u are not even able to understand the meaning of my short and simple comment
Many of the young soldiers that ended up as Russian POW's suffered the same fate as their older comrades unfortunately.
1:54 "Children have never before been used in this way for military purposes" What about all of the children who fought in the American Civil war???
Much of my fathers family lived (and still do) in and around LIege, Belgium. The SS and Gestapo made frequent stops in their small villages (Foret, Chaufontaine, Trooz) and were very condescending and cruel to locals. The atrocities takig place nearby in the Ardennes were rumored but not witnesed by many locals because of curfews and the fear of being detained.
The teen German POW already had lost his father, a Confessing Church pastor, a few years earlier when the Nazis killed him for his pacific views. Then he survived this imprisonment, yet returned to the rest of his family in occupied Germany by 1946. This question of child soldiers is very important for the 21st century, when so many conflicts generate 10,000s of similarly victimized children of both sexes!!
12 years old and 3 years military training 😱
Makes you shiver and think huh. 😮😢 Imagine it was your kid/brother… 😔
I know one of these guys. He went on to run the export business for VW for quite a while. His reality did not match your story, not even close. His problems started after the war when he had to report to a POW camp. Took the German prisoners and the guards to keep them safe from the SS prisoners who wanted to kill them. This is all news to him. Funny that.
Heartbreaking...any wars but to use such young souls.
Goodness could you imagine our kids now they can't cope without WiFi mobile phones and social media !!
what all the kids went through in the war bares thinking about but they kept strong !!
Only hope my children don't have to go through something like this when they are older ww3 makes my heart break the thought💔💔💔
Thank you! This is an interesting side of history which few of us knew about. My family was no better than the Nazis even though from Eastern Europe. Socialism is dictatorship.
I am sorry for you thank you for sharing your thoughts
Nationalism is dictatorship. Every Single Time.
@UrsulaPainter I knew an Ursula Painter when I was a child. Did you live in East Coast of Massachusetts?
@@UrsulaPainter Dictatorships are dictatorships regardless of the costume they disguise themselves with.
Military right wing dictatorships are just as bad as the fake left wing military dictatorships in the “Soviet” block or old fashioned absolute feudal monarchies.
It is so sad that kids are taught hate then go to war for those hate
My Opa was an anti gunner around Berlin and when it got bad there NCO took the boys to Northern Germany to surrender to the Americans not the Russians . He told me he was captured by the Canadians and they beat and starved them so it didn’t matter to them they were children.
😢😢😢 I am so very sorry that happened to your grandpa. ❤😢❤
It's weird about the Canadians. They had a reputation for being particularly brutal towards the Germans, both in WWI and WWII. The Germans treated the Canadians accordingly.
My mother said that when she lived in Germany 30 years after the war, every German she met said, "I never fought the Americans, only the Russians." This made her laugh. She knew there had to be somebody that actually fought against Americans, but they would never admit that. My parents lived off of the military base in a little German town. The people in the little farming village knew my father was an officer in the American army.
My grandfather was 15 when the war ended. Had the war lastet a few weeks longer he would have been conscripted for the "Volkssturm" like many of his classmates were. He was very lucky.
1:50 Not true. Children have filled many roles on the battlefield before.
I'm so stinking mad 😠 😡 😠 between 8 and 17 there just babies and who would use them
It was an informative and wonderful historical coverage documentary about humanitarian practices after WW2 by US POW administrations towards teenagers and children of Germany ( conscripted children by Nazism regime during WW2)
Incredibly sad and disturbing vlog. Children are like clay easy to mold but once the clay dries its form cant be changed. My father told me that all his four Uncles went to war the youngest being just 17years old despite conscription supposedly being 18 years for New Zealanders. Apparently, this was a fairly common occurrence.
As we learned from a very popular song that was Nr.1 in the US charts and in the top 10 around the globe back in the 80's, the average age of the American soldiers that were sent overseas to fight in the Vietnam war was 19 years old! N-N-N-Nineteen !!!!
That was the average age in every western country in the 20th century.
I did not have to serve in Viet Nam, but several guys I went to high school with either joined or were drafted. College students had a temporary deferment from the draft. That's why so many men went to college during the Viet Nam War.
@kanoierable, so what's your point? There is a big difference between 12 and 19. Also, tell us about your vast military experience.
It's a UK artist Paul Hardcastle , song is called 19.
@@bobbobby9798 The one about the Vietnam war is called "I was only 19"
by Redgum.
🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷Très 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷touchante 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪 🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪🇩🇪Bien merci !!!
I was surprised to say the least that there was a sexual aspect in the camp. I thought given that they were all military men that that sort of thing just wouldn't happen. I of course realize that most certainly there would have been a percentage of gay and bisexual men amongst them but i thought that military discipline would have kept it at bay.
I guess not.
It’s not about being homosexual or bisexual. It is an instinct that exists amongst many men when no women are present. Very well documented in research literature.
I was going to say the same. It's the same as in prisons. There the prisoners deny being bi or homosexual also.
Lots of those men were extremely perverted by war etc.
Gay men didn't commit these horrid crimes they were straight men.
Alot of these people were jacked up on methamphetamines which was legal to prescribe and alot of soldiers are still given this drug makes men sexual deviance and I've learned parasite make folks promiscuous and angry violent I now believe parasites were used as bio warfare and fecal matter carries the eggs. The Spanish flu was due to the vaccines given to soldiers. Nothing about these wars make sense.nam louse Cambodia until you add the crops grown poppy cocoa guarded by armed American soldiers for big PHARMA it's always been about stealing the crops for drug manufacturers and black markets meth now a trillion dollar business in Asia folks wanna say China im sure but they are a part just not the head our tax dollars spent to take by force guarded by armed us suffers
These young boys are so fortunate that they were in American hands! Germans hijacked trains from the east, just to get a chance to surrender to the Americans so they wouldn't be mistreated. Being in a camp like this was very unpleasant, but on the outside, civilians were starving, while Russians tortured Germans and killed them or if they let them live, they faced years of prison camp and life behind the Iron Curtain.
11M German prisoners? Surly not ! Was 2M on the eastern front, I thought 🤔
My grandfather joined the British army when he was 15 in ww1 he was a machine gunners mate and was shot 8 times the n spent a couple of years in a pow camp in Germany... he said he enjoyed his war experiences , he was always trying to get me to join the army ,I dont follow the philosophy of needing to go to war to become a man there is other ways to toughen up , and in my opinion its a lottery whether war makes you " a man " or a physical or mental wreck ..I prefer to fight war not wars ...someone famous said given wisdom every one can live in a beautiful garden...🌍🏕🏖🏜🏝
Excellent. I knew about H.Y. But not this. Thankyou
Gee 1977, I was 12 years old and kids of my age where soldiers I learned from a short movie I saw. But not on TV, indeed kids in Africa.
Youth very impressionable-
Socialism actually has nothing to do with Fascism.
They were socialist for the “good” Germans and Volksdeutsche and fascist for the rest. That’s how I see it.
@@AuntieTrichome They hijacked the Socialist party because it already had a following, then turned it into what they wanted it to be by adding the word Nationalist. In the same way, the trump MAGA people have taken over the Republican party in the USA.
"Children have never before been used in this way for military purposes."
What a load of nonsense. The vast majority of soldiers in both World Wars were under the age of 20, especially in the first. Looking further back, even by skimming history, one finds that what would have been considered children these days were always the mainstay of any and every army since the beginning of recorded history. A private in the armies of Napoleon was usually 16 years old and the sergeants about 18-20. Contrary to popular belief, Joan d'Arc was actually in the proper age range for a military officer in her time-it was her sex that made her stand out. Even today in lands outside of civilization such as those of Africa and Southeast Asia soldiers as young as 9 are sent to the jungle as full-blown NCOs with AK-47s and grenades.
Yes, but they weren't radicalised from childhood by being indoctrinated into believing the insanity of Hitler's regime at the time.
Like the French underground there was a German underground & is one a lot of us have never heard of.
Oh my goodness i just got goosebumps with the ending...
Its sickening what the nsdap did to Germany and the German youth
Most German soldiers were conscripts. Even the adults. Most regular soldiers in the Alied army new that. They called them Jerrys or Krauts and only rarely referred to them as Nazis. We take all the nuance out of war to make it easier. They have to all be bad guys. They weren't. Just like not all Allied soldiers were liberating saviors.
Very interesting story but a random collection of war pictures.
My father..as a USAAF air traffic controller was shipped over to Wiesbaden right after the fall of Berlin...my oldest brother was an adopted orphan born in February of 1947 Berlin....long story I wont go into
Don’t comment it on CZcams then
Wow
I met the chief of police of Koblenz Germany in the 70s. He was captured by the U.S. Army. He was near his home so a sargent took his uniform and sent him home in his underwear.
Try to use religion to tell them killing is wrong. Only to give them and have them read Bibles which has a God fond of killing.
lol especially in the Old Testament.
Teaching them to hate their own country and people.
"hating their own"? Especially their innocent Jewish neighbours were subject for deadly hate, if your terms included that sort of "their own"?
@@lisette2060, no, hating their nation and entire history to the point of not defending themselves. Your simplistic description of anti-Semitism is a bit more complex in reality. Jews were disproportionately represented in leftist and communist movements.
I wish I could have watched all of this but I can't listen to two people talking at the same time and get the true story. I don't think I am the only one. Pick who you want to reach and use that language.
I am glad these videos are being produced. With the rise of Facism in the United States, we need to be reminded of the atrocities committed by them.
@bumbo9622Trump. Book banning. Encouraging discrimination against homosexuals. Push for traditional gender roles. Destruction of labor organizations. Try looking at the 14 points of fascism. We're well on the way.
@bumbo9622From Webster dictionary definition of fascism "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition".
Example: the extreme right republican party in the United States, who have selected a dictator wannabe to run in their party for president, and who spew hate and violence on their far right new media puppets.
@@torinsall please explain a specific statement or example in which the extreme right has become violent or spike of. Silence toward the others?
@@torinsallI meant or spoke of violence or racism toward the left? Trying to understand why people say this. Not to be mean. I thought the black lives matter movement was the one who robbed, vandalized and hurt people when the radicals had their riots? Thank you
@@cariannweiler6159Are you perhaps capable of explaining why your governmental residence were attacked by thousands of maniacs, inspired by losing president D. Dumps hateful nonsense?
Answer based on conspiracy nonsense will be ignored ...!
My father got lucky, the brits sent him home instead of going to the American's cattle pen.
seems like an anglicized phonetic translation of Attache to me.
This topic is very interesting to me as I have never heard of it before... the voices are so boring tho 😢❤
Who are these smiling women, they talk of compassion, love, happiness, and learning... Darn, maybe someone should tell them that those kids belonged at home, not in a tent in a prisoner camp, freezing, starving and being told how wonderful democracy was, pure insanity.
And what do you think existed at home? Mum and Dad……not likely. More likely no one with no food, shelter and paternal comfort. Huge displacement of the population, let alone the death toll from bombing. No food due to ongoing fighting or poor food distribution networks. It is difficult to imagine what it would have been like during the immediate post war situation as most of us in 1st world countries have thankfully not experienced anything like post war Germany, particularly that it was so destroyed by the allies in order to achieve cessation of fighting.
I noticed you have previously made a comment about birth rate survival was 0% in Germany in 1946. Why such cognitive dissonance when recognising the terrible statistic of neonate survival but wanting to send these young men home into these same conditions?
@@sassyg3316 The Expulsions? They were not voluntary, they were kicked out, 12 to 15 million of them, the biggest human displacement in history? Yes, big problem. In the American zone, the starvation was intentional, until 1947, Eisenhower didn't even allow the Red Cross to bring food packages to the dying, just insane. You can read about it in a free and easy to find booklet called: "Famine in Germany by William Langer". Its the transcript of a speech in the US congress by Mr. Langer, governor of North Dakota. If you want to know more tell me, I've been collecting material about the unknowns of the world wars for years now. Cheers.
At Quebec, FDR forced the Morgenthau Plan on Churchill, he bribed him but when it was leaked to the press the US said it was dropped... not true, it was rewritten in a secret army pamphlet, JCS 1067, that Eisenhower made even worse in practice. If you include the bombing of 61 cities, the Rhine Meadows camps, the civilians sent to the Gulags, the starvation, and the vicious occupation after the war, it certainly looks like there was some kind of plan to erase Germany from human memory. Unprovable... yet but google "Operation Vegetarian" for example, Churchill's plan to drop cattle fodder full of anthrax from planes over the whole of Germany, that would have killed almost everyone. When D-Day came in, he was almost ready but D-Day came first, so he had to cancel it. A systematic extermination plan? Looks like it.
Later, they burned the anthrax cakes, 5 million of them I believe but without taking the necessary precautions, some people were poisoned by the smoke.
What the British didn't know is that the Germans had by then tons of Tabun, sarin nerve gas, much worse than anthrax and no antidote. In the end they never used it, it could have won them the war but Hitler refused, against his principles and he had some foolish affection for the Brits but under an anthrax attack? He probably would...
Poor kids
Baby cage I imagined a baby crib with a top
47:43 The US of the 40's was a shining examle of Apartheit. Ive not heard of of anyone holding up South Africa of the Apartheid era as a beacon of "democracy".
Desperate times use desperate measures
The Ottomans used Christian children, abducting them in Pontus and central Anatolia and raising them to be soldiers. Ironically, they were superior to Ottoman soldiers and saught by the pashas for special guards.
The Janisaries- the children (boys) from Greece were taken when they were toddlers. They were usually the first-born son as that caused a particularly tragic loss for the parents, as the first-born son was always named for the paternal grandfather, and continued the family lineage.The Janisaries wore an emblem of a fork and knife on their headgear- fought for sustenance. These soldiers were unaware of their true heritage.