Allies attrition in Germany after VE Day

[Truckosaurus]

Now then.

I was pondering the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan and how it might have compared to late 1940's Germany under its occupation by the USA/UK/France in the West and the USSR in the East.

After the 8th May 1945 did everyone just down tools (glad it was all over) or was there a "guerilla campaign" (some say, insurgency) by Nazi sympathisers, and if so how long did it continue?

[Don]

My Dad was in the "army of occupation" in Germany.

One of his jobs was to help the MPs collect drunk squaddies from the town, load 'em up into a truck and take them back to the base of a Saturday night. (He didn't drink.)

This was done largely to prevent them from being found dead in a ditch. Which, according to old Dad, occurred quite a bit.

No idea about statistics. Dad's passed on now so I can't ask him...but that's what he said. Eye witness account.

[Dunk76]

The biggest risk post 1945 was actually drink and each other. Huge amount of men with weapons and nothing much to focus on.

There are instances of Russian soldiers being lynched, which isn't surprising given their rather brutal interpretation of 'occupation', and indeed I believe a couple of American GIs were after going into a Village and committing rape.

I believe also that Russian soldiers frequently came to blows with British and American servicemen in Berlin, often with fatal consequences.

I don't ever recall stats though - I suspect they were simply listed as accidental deaths to avoid any political ramifications.

[Traveller]

The Nazi government did try and organise a German resistance movement just before the end of the war, called the Werewolves, a organised guerilla movement to fight once the Allies had overrun Germany. Was not very successful and Faded completely after 1947.

Edited by Traveller on Tuesday 21st July 10:40

[lazy_b]

There was a Nazi guerilla organisation (google "operation werwolf"), but by most accounts it doesn't seem to have been very effective.

[Asterix]

Probably not only coming out once every 28 days.

Luckily we had the silver bullets.

[DWP]

The allies used any German organisation, short of the Nazi Party to help run Germany. The police, remnants of the army etc. Huge de nazification programmes set in place. A sort of we know who you were, but now come and work with us approach. In Iraq the opposite approach was used, disband every official organisation, result was chaos. With not enough troops on the ground no one ran the country for some time, as was evidenced with the local war lords filling the gap. In Germany huge numbers of forces on the ground at the start of the occupation gave a somewhat better outcome. As for Afghanistan, every mistake possible has been made, go in, come out, go back, try and do it without proper resources etc etc. The list of political cock ups, is sadly, for our troops, endless.

Edited by DWP on Tuesday 21st July 11:58

[cymtriks]

Dunk76 said:

I believe also that Russian soldiers frequently came to blows with British and American servicemen in Berlin, often with fatal consequences.

I don't ever recall stats though - I suspect they were simply listed as accidental deaths to avoid any political ramifications.

It happened. My father in law was there and he he held the Russians in contempt. He described them as ignorant, trigger happy, lying and theiving peasants with guns. He described several shoot outs (with machine guns!!) that "didn't happen" during his time in occupied Germany.

The Russians would treat toilets as wells (and consequently do their business on the floor around the "wishing well" ), nick the taps so that the "magic" would let them get drinking water out of their homes walls and errect victory arches at the site of any dead Russian. If that body happened to be in the middle of a railway or a doorway or half way up a staircase well tough on everyone else. Concreted in to and made of granite.

[Negative Creep]

Germany's defeat was so total that no one really had the will to fight after the surrender. The Soviet Union was seen as the real enemy by Germany; in the last days the common rumour was the West would join with Germany to destroy the Russians (incidentally, pre 1941 this wasn't as unlikely as you may think). Most Germans were more concerned with surrendering t the British and Americans, or at least holding the Soviets off until the surrender

Not condoning Soviet action, but the war in the East was completely different in character and made the war in the West look like a scrap in the playground. There was fighting in Poland between Red and White forces and then the Greek Civil War. As previously siad though, the main danager to Allied soldiers was themselves

[Jimbeaux]

DWP said:

The allies used any German organisation, short of the Nazi Party to help run Germany. The police, remnants of the army etc. Huge de nazification programmes set in place. A sort of we know who you were, but now come and work with us approach. In Iraq the opposite approach was used, disband every official organisation, result was chaos. With not enough troops on the ground no one ran the country for some time, as was evidenced with the local war lords filling the gap. In Germany huge numbers of forces on the ground at the start of the occupation gave a somewhat better outcome. As for Afghanistan, every mistake possible has been made, go in, come out, go back, try and do it without proper resources etc etc. The list of political cock ups, is sadly, for our troops, endless.

Edited by DWP on Tuesday 21st July 11:58

In addition, The German and Japanese seem a bit more, dare we say, civilised and orderly than some currently invaded countries. That may have had something to do with successful occupations and their very successful runs afterwards.