Ww2 Germam and Us Troops Fight Agains Ss

In the spring of 1945, British and American forces fought their way into the center of western Germany. Although the first German metropolis to fall to American forces, Aachen, had been captured in October 1944, the invasion of the Tertiary Reich began in earnest in March 1945 when the western Allies crossed the Rhine River. By the time the Nazi government unconditionally surrendered on May 8, British, French, Soviet, and American forces controlled virtually all of Frg.

American soldiers and tank destroyers make their way through the ruins of Düsseldorf. While Allied bombers had destroyed the centers of most German cities, many smaller towns escaped destruction. Courtesy of U.s. Regular army.

In the 7 months that American GIs fought on German soil, they formed their initial impressions of Germany, a country about soldiers previously knew only through wartime propaganda and interactions with captured German soldiers. The Germany that American soldiers saw in the leap of 1945 provoked strong reactions amidst their ranks and surprised them in a number of ways. The most frequently repeated observations among American soldiers were the material wealth of the country, the friendliness of civilians, and the curious absence of Nazis.

COMFORTABLE HOMES

The first thing that many American GIs noticed about Frg was its beauty. The majority of German language cities, crossroads, and bridges had been destroyed by Allied bombing raids, but the bulk of Germany's rural areas and suburbs had escaped relatively unscathed. 19 year old Private Richard Kingsbury of the 94th Infantry Partition remembered how in southern Germany, "The frequent hills were covered with effluvious pino forests so thick with copse that they were night and cool despite the brightest sunshine. Clear bubbling streams ran downwardly the hills into broad lovely valleys, all intensively cultivated. The quaint little towns looked like illustrations from Grimm's fairy tales." Soldiers entering German houses found them richly appointed with mod piece of furniture, paintings, china, and furs. German civilians appeared well-fed and clothed, a fact that drew frequent comments from GIs who had observed the hardships the war wrought on the populations of France and England.

Above is Kufstein am Inn and below is Kohlstoff bei Kiefersfelden. American soldiers were impressed past the beauty of the German countryside. One GI brought habitation these pictures which were printed equally souvenirs. Images courtesy of Tyler Bamford.

Frg's prosperity inspired acrimony in many American soldiers. Prior to entering Germany, GIs already resented the Germans for starting the war. After GIs saw the abundance of High german homes, however, many of the conquerors became fifty-fifty more bitter toward German civilians. American conquerors assumed that the Germans looted much of this fabric abundance from countries nether their dominion. In add-on, Americans encountered millions of malnourished and mistreated Displaced Persons—men, women, and children who were forced to work as slaves in German factories and fields. As a result, American soldiers became more willing to destroy and boodle German property. American Lieutenant Colonel James H. Polk confided to his wife that seeing the wealth of Frg made him "desire to burn down every town to the ground. I really want to vanquish every place before it is occupied merely to bring abode to the women and children what a hell Germany has inflicted upon the world." Nor was Polk lonely in expressing vindictive sentiments. "My soul is bubbling with joy," wrote Second Lieutenant Preston Toll to his family. "Why? Because this is Germany that is getting blasted. Those refugees are Germans—those houses in ruins are German—those prisoners you come across are Germans…. This is the payment for the destroyed Liege, Rotterdam, London, and all the rest."

For virtually American soldiers, Deutschland was their first time in an Axis country. They no longer felt compelled to respect private belongings and relished the opportunity to make Germans suffer the same discomforts they had endured for years. Lieutenant Charles Marshall recounted how "In France we had come as liberators. Here in Germany we had come as conquerors. In France we were guests, even though we had to shoot our way into the country and have our hosts' feelings and customs into business relationship. German sensibilities, on the other hand, were of no importance, and in no way was this more than evident than in the fashion in which soldiers were billeted."

In Allied nations, soldiers were forbidden from requisitioning private homes. That changed when soldiers crossed the German border. Private Richard Mullan of the 16th Armored Infantry Battalion told his parents how whenever his unit entered a German hamlet, "We only tell the Burgermeister that we want the best firm in town with plenty of mattresses to slumber on, and they go it or else." For about GIs, this was the first time they had slept under a roof in months. They helped themselves to nutrient, liquor, and valuables with little sympathy for the families they dispossessed. Lieutenant Charles Marshall reasoned that "Since the GI knew that the Germans had looted the countries they had invaded, and since he had been taught to detest the Germans, he could see cypher incorrect in annexation from them."

FRIENDLY CIVILIANS

Although many American soldiers initially held hostile attitudes toward the German population, relations between the two groups rapidly improved. GIs quickly noticed the abundance of German language women. The large number of smartly dressed women, together with the near full absence of German men between the ages of 15 and 50, inevitably led to thousands of dates and relationships. These interactions proliferated despite United states Regular army regulations meant to prevent socializing between American forces and Germans.

Fifty-fifty before American units began entering Germany in big numbers, the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force issued orders forbidding all fraternization between American soldiers and German civilians except in the course of official business organisation. Pop opinion in the Usa was a significant influence in shaping this policy. Many Americans back habitation worried that GIs fraternizing with High german prisoners of war and civilians would lead to leniency toward former Nazis. This fearfulness peaked in early May 1945, when American news outlets reported that high-ranking American officers were regularly socializing with captured Nazi leaders including Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering. As GIs encountered large numbers of civilians, withal, the soldiers were surprised by the fact that Germans displayed few outward signs of hatred toward the victors. "Information technology's hard for me not to smile back at them," confessed Private Richard Mullan.

GIs interactions with German children also undermined American soldiers' support for the fraternizing ban. Soon after the fighting concluded, young children began crowding effectually GIs and begging for candy. Even battle-hardened veterans could not resist the children'due south entreaties and freely distributed the chocolate bars and gum from their military rations. As Sergeant Gerald Raftery told his wife, "the temptation to fraternize at least with the children is omnipresent and not always resisted. I uncertainty if whatever threat of fine or reduction [in rank] could prevent GI's candy from reaching kids who look as though they would like some." Allied commanders feared that GIs would become too enamored with their one-time enemies, but many soldiers thought that kindness toward civilians, and especially children, was the best mode to begin reeducating Germans.

In response, U.s. Army Main of Staff General George Marshall directed Eisenhower to make information technology clear that non-fraternization orders were being enforced. In the wake of such directives, ane general declared that American soldiers should non fifty-fifty "initiate a smile" or "give mucilage to babies," but other officers took a more pragmatic arroyo to the widespread do. Major William Hill of the 28th Infantry Division reasoned that "soldiers are going to have their fling regardless of rules or orders." Indeed, GIs employed a number of clever measures to brim the restrictions. Some provided Allied uniforms for their German dates to habiliment.

Others forged documents for German women stating they were Displaced Persons. The widespread unpopularity of the non-fraternization society made it virtually incommunicable for commanding officers to enforce. Even worse, soldiers with stellar combat records began accumulating disciplinary records for being caught past the military constabulary with German civilians. Consequently, the policy began to unravel in the summer of 1945. On June 11, 1945, General Dwight D. Eisenhower lifted the ban on American soldiers fraternizing with High german children. The following calendar month, he permitted soldiers "to engage in conversation with adult Germans on the streets and in public places."

ABSENCE OF NAZIS

American soldiers found it easy to fraternize with the majority of Germans they encountered because there was a curious absence of Nazis among German civilians. Before GIs entered Germany, they had expected to meet a noncombatant population total of devoted Nazi adherents. Indeed, the fanatical resistance by remnants of the High german Wehrmacht and SS convinced GIs they would "have to fight to the bitter end and occupy the whole of Federal republic of germany and kill every fanatic in the country before it volition be over." Notwithstanding to American soldiers' surprise, few Germans they encountered exterior of the armed forces and party administration professed Nazi sympathies in one case their forces had been defeated. The offset reason for this lack of Nazis owed to the fact that many Nazis perished with the Reich rather than live under American occupation.

As Americans entered German towns and cities for the first time, they found thousands of men, women, and children who had committed suicide rather than surrender. In the urban center of Leipzig, members of the 2nd and 69th Infantry Divisions found a tragic scene when they entered the City Hall. Life mag lensman Margaret Bourke-White described the scene: "Within was a Bizarre office, hung with sentimental landscapes and furnished in the heavy style which represented the nineteenth century High german's idea of luxury. Reclining on the ponderous leather furniture was a family group, so intimate, so lifelike, that information technology was hard to realize that these people were no longer living." The urban center treasurer, mayor, and commander of the Volkssturm had all taken their lives together with their families. Across Germany, similar scenes played out in which SS soldiers, administrators, and mutual citizens all took their own lives. Ahead of the Allied invasion of Germany, Nazi propagandists had bodacious their countrymen that American soldiers would torture and kill them and their families, prompting mass suicides throughout the Reich.

Some other reason for the lack of Nazis was their relative scarcity even earlier the state of war. In the terminal gratuitous election in Germany, Adolf Hitler received just a third of all votes bandage. By 1945 just nearly eight million Germans belonged to the Nazi party, out of a total population of approximately 80 meg people. Many later justified their membership by maxim they would have lost their jobs and businesses if they had non joined the party. Thousands more than Germans simply lied about their Nazi activities or fled the country. In fact, the Allies had such difficulty determining which Germans should staff the postwar German government that occupation forces resorted to using lie detector tests.

Finally, in that location was a host of Germans who remained unrepentant for their Nazi activities or professed no noesis of the regime's crimes. High german industrialist Alfred Krupp, whose family endemic the largest arms manufacturing visitor in Europe, told Margaret Bourke-White that the slave laborers in his factories "had come voluntarily, and had been quite well off, as they had been fed more than German labor had." Krupp admitted to hearing rumors well-nigh concentration camps but claimed that this was the piece of work of a few madmen in the authorities and that information technology was not his job to investigate the rumors. He had conveniently not witnessed Nazi guards murdering workers from his factories who had outlived their usefulness.

An American soldier gives cigarettes to a few of the more than 30,000 liberated concentration camp inmates at Dachau on Apr 29, 1945. GIs had a difficult time believing Germans who protested they did non know about the camps. Dachau was just ten miles from Munich. Courtesy United states Ground forces.

Allied bombing raids provided a convenient rationale for Germans who wished to paint themselves as the victims. Even later on American soldiers forced German language civilians to bout liberated concentration camps, German civilians and Nazi administrators insisted they had no prior knowledge of the camps and refused to believe that the Führer had ordered such atrocities. In March 1945, Lieutenant Colonel Polk angrily recorded how 2 German women "cried violently when we threw them out" of their business firm. They could not empathise the Americans' cruelty and exclaimed "The Germans never harmed anyone."

Even though the majority of Germans claimed to disapprove of Hitler'due south authorities subsequently the war, many wanted to ignore the uncomfortable truth virtually their own actions. During Hitler's time in ability, even Nazi opponents had sometimes applauded Hitler'southward actions, such as the unification of Deutschland and Austria. German civilians had known about the thousands of concentration camps, millions of slave laborers, and aggressive wars their nation started, notwithstanding most took no deportment to stop the war or salve their Jewish, Roma, homosexual, and Slavic neighbors. Sergeant Henry Giles summed up many soldiers' feelings when he wrote,

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Source: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/wwii-allies-impressions-of-germany

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