Faces of Defeat - German Prisoners-of-War

WWII was an event that changed societies! It's impact was far reaching with too many losses of lives needlessly! We seem now to be in a different order of battle! That type of battle, probably will not exist in the future! This war, WWII seemed to have inflicted both combatants, prisoners of war and including war crimes on a massive scale and proportion!

Great video, I've seen this before. Great share.

That’s hard to watch. So many Nazi soldiers were mere children. I knew a German Navy Frigate Captain in England in the mid-‘70s who led a UDT commando attacking Allied ships on the coast of Italy during WWII. He said he heard an Allied radio broadcast that announced the end of hostilities. He lined his men up along a ridge that looked down on a coastal highway, and when a U.S. Army tank appeared at the head of an armored unit, he walked down and stood in the middle of the road, holding a white flag. The lead tank had an Army Lieutenant standing in the open canopy and Frigate Captain Otto Schmidt called out to him in perfect English, “Lieutenant, I am Frigate Captain Otto Schmidt of the German Navy. I wish to surrender my men and myself to you as a representative of the US Army. If you agree to our surrender, I will order my men to lay down their arms and join me here in the middle of this road,” He snapped a salute to the Lieutenant and he said he was pleased when it was returned. With that, he waved his arms to his men on the ridge, and they all peacefully climbed down and stood at attention in front the Lieutenant. Otto said he spent six years as a POW at a camp outside St Louis, MO. When he was released, he opened a men’s clothing store in the city and operated that business until he received a letter from an old friend Germany. He said the letter informed him that the .German Navy was being rebuilt and offered him a commission at his old rank. He said he felt duty bound to accept, to help rebuild his homeland. When I last saw Otto in 1975, we had dinner at a restaurant in London. He said then that he planned to serve another ten years before retiring. Otto was a gentleman and a Christian. I often wonder what became of him.