The Forgotten Wehrmacht Unit | Last Germans to Surrender after WW2
Vložit
- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- The Last Japanese Soldier to surrender (in 1974!): • Last Japanese soldier ...
On the 7th of May 1945, the German General Alfred Jodl signed the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany at the Allied headquarters in Reims, France. It meant the Second World War had come to an end, at least, in the European theatre of war.
But… the war didn’t end for a small Wehrmacht unit consisting of 11 men that were housed at Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. The Wehrmacht unit was tasked with a secret mission named Operation Haudegen. They had to establish meteorological stations on Svalbard. In the chaos following the German capitulation, this Wehrmacht unit was forgotten… And these men would eventually, stuck on an island in the freezing cold, far from civilization, months after Germany’s capitulation. They would become the last German soldiers to surrender after the Second World War.
Support HoH: / houseofhistory
My Twitter: / houseofhistory1
My videos tend to get arbitrarily demonetized. That is why I decided to open up a Patreon where people can support the channel. If you decide to pledge as little as 1$/month you will gain access to a monthly series exclusive to my Patrons!
Time Codes:
1:02 Wilhelm Dege
3:16 Operation Haudegen
6:38 Life on Svalbard
8:28 The Forgotten Wehrmacht Unit
10:34 Aftermath
Watch my documentary series:
End of Empire - Downfall of the Qing Dynasty playlist: • End of Empire - China'...
Hitler's Spies playlist: • Hitler's Spies
The content of this video covers events, people or concepts via a lecture-style presentation that is educational and historical in nature. Every video is original content by House of History. The events relating to conflict in this video are portrayed in their historical context without either value judgment or an ideological message attached to it. There is no intent to shock, upset or disgust. The goal of my channel is to make interesting lecture-style videos, no more, no less.
Thank you for taking the time to check out House of History, I hope you will find the films informative, interesting and enjoyable!
If you have any feedback, questions or criticism feel free to leave a comment. Your opinion truly aids me in improving the content of the channel! If you have a question, feel free to leave a comment and I will either write a reply, answer your question in a Q&A video, or make an entire video about it!
Sources:
Photos, paintings and imagery: Public Domain, Wikicommons
Photographs of Operation Haudegen: Dr. Eckhardt Dege.
Der Spiegel Article: www.spiegel.de/einestages/kri...
WHO Article: www.warhistoryonline.com/inst...
NOS Article: nos.nl/artikel/2055843-de-ver...
#HouseofHistory #History #ww2
Minor correction: at 2:33 those are US soldiers, not German. Some viewers pointed it out - thanks for their sharp observation!
The 2nd ski troopers also look non-German as well: those smgs are not German, I think. The first skiers may be Germans - did you check?
@@timomastosalo I think you're right. What about the rifles on 2:50, did Germans have so short rifles? Perhaps sb knows.
timomastosalo Maybe it’s a photo from the eastern front. Maybe it’s with captured weapons, if I’m not mistaken, the PPSH was favored by German soldiers, when they looted them. Especially units who needed SMGs like assault pioneers or recon groups.
Abbé Vogler these two guys are actually Siberian sky troopers. I believe take in the Stalingrad area
@@abbevogler2619 I won't state anything very certain further than previous - for I don't really know. So this is guessing, based on what I do know otherwise.
Even the guys with foreign smgs could be Germans with captured Russian weapons. But their snow camou looks different: the way they protect head. I guess these might be Russians: they used ski troops also in the late war. The first ski patrol is likely German - those caps, and the Alpine terrain.They might have a shorter rifle issued for them, like a carbine: to better handle it with those skiing sticks.
I don't think these are Finns, they used a lot of Suomi smgs (sometimes captured Soviet ones) for their ski troopers, for they were nicely shorter than rifle: to operate when skiing. Also it was because they operated in very forested terrains, so distance was almost meaningless, if not a sniper: firepower was preferrable, a bullet sprayer.
For a German soldier in WWII, you could hardly have lucked out better then to spend the war sitting on an isolated Island w/ nothing more then the random polar bear to worry about.
Stalin, the Great Russian Bear!😛
A polar bear is harmless for a group of men armed with rifles. The cold and running out of supplies in such a situation is deadly.
bonus "get out of nuremberg" free card
@Ahmad Omar Well, part of the eastern front was exactly that plus the red army trying to kill you. That's like a horde of polar bears with auto-machine guns and tanks. ;-)
Being stationed in the Channel Islands must've been a delightful posting for most. anywhere but the Eastern Front!
"Germany was unavailable" Don't you just hate when your country stops working
@88Gibson LesPaul Yeah, we can adapt fast when the situation demands it, just like at the front
@@davep5227 the amount of emojis just makes your comment cringy
@@mulmusfistus4128 yeah I know I over do it sometimes 😂
@88Gibson LesPaul you must be 31 years old, I'm 30. How has our government stopped working under Trump again? What is it not doing for you that it was before?
This used to happen when we’d call our family in Romanian back in the 80s. Apparently the county wouldn’t be taking any calls. The whole country.
Germans guys in Norway: we didn’t surrender till 5 months after the war
Hiroo Onoda: hold my Asashi
Do u mean the workers at the Norwegian German base and Onoda’s band of soldiers because let me tell ya no German wanted to surrender in WW2 to put it mildly
@@scl1332 Riiiiiight. Because every German was a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi, huh? First of all, that wasn't true; secondly a whole lot of them were happy enough not to BOTH lose AND be killed.
@chirstovoskresye first what isn’t true second of all u must be familiar with Waffen SS grant it there were troops who were smart enough to live but seriously what the hell bra
@@scl1332 There are cases of the Wehrmacht fighting against the SS. The SS were the die-hard supporters of Hitler's regime, mostly because they were similar to the SA during the inter-war period. Cases of this includes the Battle of Castle Itter, the Munich Crisis, and the resistance of Major Max Liedtke and Lieutenant Albert Battel when they blocked a bridge after learning that the Jews in Przemyśl were to be "liquidated" by the SS, allowing several Jews to escape. Cases like these help expose the overall distaste the Wehrmacht had for the SS. To say that every German who fought for Germany was a Nazi is foolish, and incorrect. There were people in the Wehrmacht (and German civilians) who didn't support Hitler at all. (For an example of German civilians resisting, look up Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
@The Kalergi Plan Is Real Oww the edge.
I know about the the last Japanese soldier, but I never knew this story about the German soldiers. Thank you for this. Well done!
That’s because of media bias
@@jefferyepstein9210 also because the story is literally and figuratively isolated compared to the one about Hiroo Onoda, who was fighting a guerilla war largely alone for decades, while these guys were essentially military researcher who were stranded
I listened to an audio book about the Japanese soldier, which was very interesting, but also hadn't heard of these German soldiers.
Very interesting story!
Sort of like that Soviet astronaut that was in orbit when the Soviet Union fell....
Link to article?
@@iamk4474 Hi @Ammo08 Hope you don't mind. Your post intrigued me so I looked it up and found this Trust this answers your question Iamk Peace Friends m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2509764399089789&id=1160495674016675
@@pontiuspilot9301 Thanks
@@iamk4474 www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1992-03-26-9201300570-story.html
Imagine going to space then coming back to see your country destroyed. Sad.
My God no beer.
That is terrible no booze to even have for the holidays esp Christmas
No schnapps? Dumkopf
Yes, but for the rest of their lives they had a marvelous excuse for overindulgence - they were just catching up.
And don't forget cigarettes. Unless the men were first screened, ensuring they didn't smoke because that would have meant shipments of cigarettes to the men, thus blowing their cover. But no beer? That's okay. It's the lack of bourbon that would drive me nuts.
And being German as well.
Das ist ja grausam.
Svalbard was, as many other “undiscovered” areas, frequently visited by Vikings hundreds of years before the Dutch arrived. The Vikings called it Svalbard (cold shores) and it was first mentioned in written text in around year 1190.
You're absolutely right. I'd love to create some videos and properly research some expeditions, history and folklore of the Vikings. I need to get a better computer so I can render cinematic footage for that. Thanks for sharing!
@@HoH
I have been watching some of your videos for a little while now and must tell you that you have done a fantastic job. I finally subscribed today and look forward to watching your other videos. I see you have a Patreon account so hopefully your viewers and subscribers can help out enough so that you can get a better equipped computer for future videos. I will be contributing and I'm sure many others will as well. Thank you for your hard work and dedication.
@@notsosilentmajority1 Thank you for the nice comment - you definitely made my day! I plan to increase my upload schedule in late November again from 1 to 2 uploads a week. Very happy you enjoy my videos, hopefully I'll be able to meet the expectations for a long time to come.
A new microphone and laptop are the first things I will buy once I save enough.🎙💻
@@HoH
I am very glad to be a member of the H of H family and look forward to your wonderful productions. Please take your time so that you maintain the high quality work that you have been giving us to enjoy. You are a young man so make sure to enjoy yourself along the way. Thank you and God bless.
Goed bezig hoor :) Ga zo door, I subscribe
the luckiest german soldiers in that war.
Mike Taylor You say that as though the entire Wehrmacht was decimated. Only the armies in the east were
In one of the coldest areas far away from civilization with dwindling supplies for months perhaps years on end with no contact to the outside world nah I don't think so I'd rather be a German soldier surrending to the British and Americans in Czechoslovakia
Disagree. The camera man that films the history channel have the better life
LePrEcHaUn_R6 the first German armies to fall fell to the United States 🇺🇸🦅 Army in Aachen Germany in fact Aachen Germany was the first city to fall in WW2 when the Americans pushed extremely hard to get a German city before anyone else including the allies but they lost 2,000 men in Aachen and killed 5,700 German soldiers many of which where elite S.S. Units pulled off the eastern front
LePrEcHaUn_R6 wouldn’t say that’s accurate at all the eastern front was worse but the western front wasn’t easy ether you wouldn’t have lasted to minutes on the western front boo
You have a real good way of talking and explaining. Nothing narcistic, straigt to the point.. perfect. Keep it up
You'll never learn any of this in today's schools. It a liberal, socialist indoctrination environment. At least when we went to school, we were taught more in a month than most schools today teach in at least two marking periods.
He really Shruuuuds nothing does he?
narcissistic
Two polar bears didn't like this video.
acbulgin2 I think it has a huge amount of iron, so much that it’s recommended not to eat the liver.
Did you have permission and or authority to speak for these 2 polar bears?
And over 300 Soviet bears!
No beer .No hot women..Absolute suicide mission.
What i was thinking also.. :-)
No. Anywhere in Europe was a suicide mission for Germans.
@@MrBonners poland?
@@robertclark1669 yes, Poland too
@@alexo.3758 how about no
This is a fascinating account of what would be an overlooked event of world war 2. This deserves a documentary as it’s important to keep the history of aspects of what happened during this period.
Thank you, this was unknown to me til' I saw this. A brilliant presentation!
I really enjoyed this story. The photo of American troops shown while you were talking about German soldiers training (at 2:30) caught my eye but the story you're telling is really interesting. The information is what is really important. Thanks!
They were probably NOT issued with automatic rifles but with the (K) carbine especially because they weren't a fighting unit and didn't bring loads of ammo.
yeah they didn't even have STG44's in 1940 and they would go to frontline soldiers, they would have had k98ks, looks like they had an MG34 as well though
Of course. They are soldiers first. A rifle of some sort is part of the uniform/tool kit. Probably freeze up in seconds outside.
@@M_LarsMakes sense because the MG34 and the K rifle used the same ammo whereas the STG used different ammo. They weren't supposed to fight but to lay low and. gather weather data. Frontline troops at the Ostfront were in real need of the STG assault rifles
They were issued with mp40 s
@@gulfwarveteran8528 The bear would win.
Just found your channel...great stuff. Articulate, genuine and throughly enjoyable. Subscribed..!
Same thing happened to that German soldier in Tibet. There was a book, maybe even a motion picture, about that one. It is called "Seven Years in Tibet".
A beautiful film!
The Nevada Desert Rat , Heinrich Harrer.
Heinrich Harrer wasn't a soldier, he was an Austrian climber who had to sign up to the SS so he would be allowed on a Himalayan mountaineering trip, though he was only required to wear the uniform for one day. In India he was interred when war broke out as an "enemy alien" civilian until he and another bloke escaped and crossed the border where they spent "Seven years in Tibet". I indexed, proof read and corrected the English translation of his autobiography, so if anyone wants to know more, ask me.
@@Dave_Sisson interesting stuff
This channel has my favourite intro music and logo (splash video?) of all the CZcams subscriptions I've ever kept. Classy, memorable, even historic.
Also, thanks for the history lessons! These are also historic, and classy.
Love your video`s. I subscribed. These events and people unknown to me are very interesting. Thank you for doing them.
I'd like to see a video on Hauptsturmfuhrer Viktor Grabner (9SS Pz), who fell on Arnhem Bridge when his recon unit tried to probe the British defenses during Operation Market-Garden. He apparently served in the war from early on, and was decorated, including the Knight's Cross received the day before he died.
Very informative. Love the obscure nature of the story. Thank you.
Thanks for this video. I had forgotten about these Germans stuck in the Arctic after WW2 ended. So it was good to hear the story again.
O man, that is what I call an odd situation: you definitely WANT to surrender and they take no notice of you for 4 months in those conditions.
@ That may be true. But to be fair these young men had no choice.
Happened to see half a programme about these guys who got stranded there, they were so lucky.
I can only think of one case were there were a group of Germans in WWII who were in an even better position, and they were the crew of The Graf Spee who got to live after the fate of their Captain.
Oh the boomers and their overcompensation
stan broniszewski there were snowflakes back then too...
@@thecreepnextdoor7560 And snowmobiles too..
just sayin..
I just subscribed! You got amazing history videos! Felt sorry for these forgotten men!
9:57 Maybe the real Reich was the friends we made along the way
That is probably the funniest reply ever 🥄♨️
@@roberthendrie4919 ha ha no
Great vlog! This I did know. Great to know! Greetings from Norway, and yes I have been to Svalbard. First time in 1987. Magic place!
Just discovered your channel few days ago.. (Thanks to CZcams prioritizing garbage).. Your subject matter and your soothing and precise narrations are exceptionally rare and a delight to the viewer. Thank you for your wonderful contribution into historical nostalgia. 🙏💖
2:08 that German weather station is on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. It had been secretly installed in Labrador during the war and then forgotten. It wasn't rediscovered until the late 1970s.
I am impressed that someone actually knows about this and did a video on it!
Enjoyed your presentation. Bravo ! TY !
Superb program; thank you.
Thanks for this interesting video...not too long, unique, interesting and human. Please keep up the good work. Subscribed!
This was absolutely excellent, truly amazing and interesting. The lecture was just outstanding and so well done.
Thank you for sharing this incredibly fascinating story! Looking forward to many more)
Wonderful story, brilliant presentation. Thank you.
I am an 55 years old German and interested in such stories since my boyhood, but I've never heard about such an unit. Very good work guy! I just took the abo and will hear about the Japanese which sounds much more harder. THANKS
Glad you enjoyed it!
Nice job House of History. I enjoy your detailed accounts of WWII history.
Ok, so Mark Felton has garnered hours of my time, now this! You guys are incredible!
Welcome aboard, Matthew!
Nice work, well researched and told beautifully.
Very well done young man! Though I still don't like sharing my mistress named history with anyone. You will go far in pollinating the minds of young people and thereby ensure that our memory of costly days of blood , fear hard choices and sacrifice will survive as long as that precious torch named history continues to be passed! You are in my prayers.
Man, if I was in a unit that was forgotten, I'd be all sorts of pissed.
What do you mean you forgot about us?
Well at that point the german command structure was compleatly collapsing. It is actually not uncomman to "forget" isolated troops. And considering that most likely only few people even new about this mission doesnt make it easier.
Forgotten in respect to history. Pretty sure people in Germany who knew about them to begin with thought about them (if they still were alive at that point), but had other problems of more immediate concern to contend with, possibly projecting it would be best to wait till end of persecution of German POWs before divulging their existence.
"It's your duty and reponsibility to make sure we return home unharmed!"
Surely these "forgotten" men had relatives (parents, brothers, sisters, etc) who wanted to know their whereabouts. Problem was that Germany was in a mess after the surrender and top priority would have been food, shelter and clothing for most surviving Germans not worrying about a few men trapped on an island up north.
The British had the 14th Army. It was called the "Forgotten Army" but, ironically, was one of Britain's most successful in WW2. By the time its troops arrived home, nobody wanted to know.
Very interesting presentation about an otherwise unknown part of the war's history. Thank you indeed.
Loved the video. Thanks!
Another excellent video, can't wait to hear about more isolated units! I'm sure there's gotta be plenty both during and after the war.
I'd never heard of that before, nice video - you are informative, concise and easy to listen to. Would love to hear you talk about Hugh O' Flaherty, the "scarlet pimpernel of the Vatican" :)
Great video! I hadn't heard about this unit!
Very interesting, subscribed! Will look forward to watching your posts and taking a look at your back catalogue.
I read that the members of the SS Galicia division fought on against the Soviets until 1953. This was a division recruited from the Ukraine, so technically not Germans, but fighting for them. After the Nazi surrender they based themselves in the forests of the Ukraine from where they would launch attacks on Russian political commissars and personel. Soviet Interior Ministry troops were tasked with combating them, finally completing the job some eight years after the war had ended. Now that would make an interesting video, but I would guess that detailed information may be hard to come by.
Probably under #StepanBandera
They weren't the only ones.
There was a Panzee Grenedier Division that fought a running battle all the way to US held territory to surrender there. They refused to surrender to the Russians because they knew what would happen to them.
By the time they made it they had ditched their uniforms. When they surrendered, it took a lot of convincing and showing of surviving paperwork to convince the US soldiers that they were, in fact, soldiers and needed to be taken into custody.
Think they surrendered in 51
When the Germans retreated from the Ukraine in 1944 they left arms, ammunition & what supplies they could spare to the Ukrainian partisans. Many of these were Ukrainian nationalists who hated the Russians & communism. Only the fact that were were supplied, hidden & supported by the villagers of the western Ukraine allowed them to keep resisting the soviets until the early 50s. Most were executed by the reds when captured by some were sent to Siberian gulags and lived to tell their story.
@@SoulSoundMuisc can you give anymore info I’m trying to find this story
@@evanobrien7316 I wish that I could. I read it in a couple of different military history books that I, unfortunately, no longer own.
That sort of odd info is difficult to find, so I feel for you. It's like the compagnies of American soldiers that turned and went to work for the Germans. Not a few individuals, not a squad here and there. Full compagnies. Good luck finding any text about that either.
do something about the Polish soviet war or something in the inter-war period, this is such an interesting time in history that gets far too little attention. also your videos are absolutely amazing and informative keep it up man
Good idea! That is definitely a topic worth covering, thanks for the great suggestion.
Ah sorry for saying that, but the yt channel " the great War" is covering these topic really well.
Superb videos brilliantly researched. Cheers
Seems like certainly a knowledgeable lad, and a story I had not heard before. Subbed, thanks!
Thank you for this history lesson.
Do the Attack on the Dead Men. (The Defense of Osoweic Fortress)
Well made video btw, also appreciated your take on the Gran Chaco War.
Many thanks. This was very interesting.
Another story from WWII that I was not familiar with. I learned something. Thank you.
Very interesting presentation
Great story. Appreciated!
Thoroughly enjoyed
Excellent. Thank you!
Germans: Hello? Can we surrender now, please? We're out of beer!
Norway: Hold my seal club...
Better than waiting 30 years
That certainly is a topic for another time!
Japan: Please come home, the war ended a long time ago
Hiro Oonoda: This doesn't end until I say it ends!
Excellent. You are right up there with Dr. Mark Felton, and that is no faint praise!
Thank you, I appreciate it!
I really enjoyed this video. Well done
No idea Elgar’s cello concerto could make such a cool intro
Thanks! Not many people recognize it, but I love it 😄
nice video
Excellent stuff, well done.
Excellent video.
I'm impressed by these men. Simply surviving in that place was no mean achievement, and learning that you may have been forgotten must have been worrying - surely, few knew they were there ? Would anyone send a ship, given the inherent dangers ? How long before a ship *could* reach them ? What if their radio broke and they couldn't tell anyone of their plight ?
they had everything, except Beer. As a German , that made me cry.
What a beautiful man! Thanks for the video and the eye candy!
Very interesting.
Thank you🙂
If they had known what living behind 'The Iron Curtain' was going to be like, they might have chosen to stay.
It honestly sounds cool to have been stationed there. No combat just you and the boys by themselves.
OFten think it would be nice if I had survival artic skills and just chill out on my own for a year or two just to detox from this toxic world.
Excellent work.
Thank You. Keep the Videos coming.
Thanks, will do!
You speak excellent English. As a Texan, I had no trouble following you. Great video. Thank you.
Thanks Ken, appreciate it!
@@HoH Your welcome.
I only speak English and Texan. My wife speaks Dutch, Indonesian and English. I'm jealous of those who have such a talent.
Yea, honestly I thought his accent was mildly Irish until I listened for a few minutes. The pronunciation of reconnaissance was the only thing in the whole vid that raised my eyebrow.
Mr. Ken Texan? You mean yee haw speak? Lol
@@zqplyn-r6648 Still unsure how to pronounce renaissance to be fair...
Theirs an interesting book, Swastikas in the Arctic: U-boat Alley through the Frozen Hell.
summray?
@ They sent a recce expedition in '38-'39 to scout for a base for whaling factory ships on the coast. Not the pole.
Short article: www.history.com/news/hitler-nazi-secret-expedition-antarctica-whale-oil
There's a book "The Third Reich in Antarctica: The German Antarctic expedition 1938-1939"
Mark Felton has a video on it:
m.czcams.com/video/Rs0ZaCQrScc/video.html
@ they did set up a research station and the annherbe searched for something there, Atlantis/inner earth type of stuff. Himmler was obsessed with that stuff. Aparently there was some US mission to Antarctica after the war called operation highjump that got real hushed up. Makes for nice little conspiracies, fun to look at sometimes.
fascinating video indeed. many thanks for posting. hi from australia.
That was real good thank you
Wasn’t there a cod black ops mission based off this
The Reznov Flashback.
With the Blackbird? Ik they didn’t have that in WW2
“Last remnants of the third reich” - Victor Reznov
@@damiensimmons2504 Blackbird Helicopter? Those were not built until Vietnam I believe.
I highly doubt that mission took place north of Norway, the Soviet Union could not have stepped foot there as a military Force (historically)
Great video. I never knew about these guys.
Very good and interesting video Bro, really welcome know another awesome history from wwII
Amazing! Thanks.
Good detail and clear presentation.
I find this world war 2 information fascinating.
Glad I gound your channel,great informative clip.
Thank you so much.
That's amazing
Man seeing that weather station in a video is odd cause I'm five minutes walking from there
Thanks for this video. Fascinating stuff.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent mini-doc! Had never heard of this unit! Thank you! Subscribing now. But, what did they eat? Surely they weren't supplied regularly.
Colder than then a witches tit. But they had food a dog and comraderie . At least they did not have to suffer the horrors of war.
Ivan Loar flatter than a witch’s.., is the expression, I believe.
Could be all depends on ones age and the demographic area one lived in. Now if we were pirates it could be forget the chest... I'll take the booty!
@@hgm8337 Chuck, Ivan has it right. Very familiar military jest in both peace and war. Also the more graphic, the ice-cold tit being more alarming and funny than the merely flat. Since much of military life involves rising at "O Dark Thirty," the same comment on conditions at those times is frequently heard and always agreed.
Robert Struder I see,.. happy to be corrected
@@hgm8337 The rare CZcams commenter who acknowledges a mistake. Goodonya, mayte.
Very intersting video! Just a minor thing: 6:31 "armed with automatic rifles". I am a bit doubtfull, that when beeing in an area where no fighting is to be expected they would get those "rare" items. During WW2 the germans had the FG42 and the G43 a few G41s and then the STG44 as far as i know, but not in high enough numbers to make a difference on the battlefield. My guess would be that the weather station guys just had standard bolt action rifles (like the pictures suggest maybe additionally 1 or 2 MGs). Even today a bolt action rifles of a certain caliber is considered enough against a polar bear.
I faintly thought the same. I'd expect Kar 98Ks rather than MP 40s.
The Germans made almost half a million StG-44s. They were not rare except compared to a Mauser bolt action rifle. A large number were shipped to Syria after WW2 where they are still being used.
The predecessor to the StG-44, the MP-42 & MP-43 were in service from 1942.
@@allangibson8494 Half a million isn't that much if you take into account that germany had between 4.5 million active soldiers in 1939 and 9.4 million in 1944. Such weapons were dearly needed in frontline duty, constantly got lost and damaged and would not be used to equip a meteorological outpost which isn't expected to fight much anyway.
@@nirfz A half million delivered out of four million ordered. It was supposed to be the Weremacht's new standard issue rifle. Events got in the way.
Great information!
Thank you!
A very strange account of the affair! There is an even stranger story from the same region and time.
Do tell 😀
@@HoH In the about 1930 some Germans travelled around Svalbard. The Austrian Kapitän Ritter, who later spent a winter there as a trapper with his wife Christiane. (She wrote a popular book about it) The the geologist Dege and the meteorologist Knospel, A Norwegian polar bear hunter named Henry Rudi was also central in this drama. He and Ritter ended in Greenland, where Ritter surrendered to Rudi. (The Americans provided for Ritter in the Northwest for the duration of the war. The Germans had weatherstations on Hopen, (2, Luftwaffe) and first Signehavna in Svalbard (burned) then Haudegen on Nordaustlandet. The story of Ritter's surrender in Greenland I have heard from Rudi himself, for a pint of beer.And then there is the Russian radio operator. Too much. Rudi also committed a book, do not think it is translated.
@@floro7687 Thanks for sharing! I imagine it's a story known in Germany and not so much outside of there - all I can find are German sources (will definitely read one tomorrow morning on spitzbergen.de)!
@@HoH Henry Rudi in his old age used to sit in the Beer Hall of Tromsø. For a half liter of beer he would tell any requested story.The story about the firefight in Greenland went like this: One night at one in the morning we came under heavy small arms fire. We ran out and returned fire. After a while the shooting stopped. Then Ritter shouted: "Are you shooting at people trying to surrender, Henry?" I shouted back "why do you want to surrender, Captain?" Ritter shouted back: "we are out of ammunition". One of the Germans were killed.
Interesting story .
An amazing story thank you.
Awesome man 😊