[Scape]

Death Traps

Iron graves

[ziggy]

The Aphenia....thanks for the reminder.

[canucker]

Did you watch U-571 on TV tonight Scape?

[Scape]

God no, you couldn't pay me to watch that revisionist dreck!

[canucker]

Well I saw that it was on TV tonight. I watched it a long while back and I liked it, but I'm definitely not a history buff.

So many of the men (and women) in the first U-boat link you gave (Death Traps) are not even German, many are speaking Dutch. I know the Germans took many Dutchmen and put them into work camps, but I guess I didn't expect them to be working in U-boats side by side with German sailers.

[Scape]

Later on it was concentration camps that were making the U-boat pens but there were a lot of Lebensraum in countries with a large German demographic that were more than willing to swell the ranks. The tales of the Latvian SS fanaticism are chilling for example and they held out till the fall of Berlin while German units routed.

[xerxes]

canucker wrote:

Well I saw that it was on TV tonight. I watched it a long while back and I liked it, but I'm definitely not a history buff.

So many of the men (and women) in the first U-boat link you gave (Death Traps) are not even German, many are speaking Dutch. I know the Germans took many Dutchmen and put them into work camps, but I guess I didn't expect them to be working in U-boats side by side with German sailers.

It could be the Dutchmen were there willingly. Sadly, Holland was the source of a large number of willing turncoats to the German side during the war. Conversely, the Dutch also created one of the most effective resistance movements during the war as well.

[Tricks]

Scape wrote:

God no, you couldn't pay me to watch that revisionist dreck!

Oh man. U-571. So bad for accuracy it is actually amusing.

[canucker]

xerxes wrote:

canucker wrote:

Well I saw that it was on TV tonight. I watched it a long while back and I liked it, but I'm definitely not a history buff.

So many of the men (and women) in the first U-boat link you gave (Death Traps) are not even German, many are speaking Dutch. I know the Germans took many Dutchmen and put them into work camps, but I guess I didn't expect them to be working in U-boats side by side with German sailers.

It could be the Dutchmen were there willingly. Sadly, Holland was the source of a large number of willing turncoats to the German side during the war. Conversely, the Dutch also created one of the most effective resistance movements during the war as well.

I just remember hearing the stories my Opa used to tell my about the Germans taking him and putting him on a train for a work camp. He jumped off and made it back home eventually. He was lucky. I guess I didn't realize that many Dutchmen went so willingly.

[xerxes]

canucker wrote:

xerxes wrote:

canucker wrote:

Well I saw that it was on TV tonight. I watched it a long while back and I liked it, but I'm definitely not a history buff.

So many of the men (and women) in the first U-boat link you gave (Death Traps) are not even German, many are speaking Dutch. I know the Germans took many Dutchmen and put them into work camps, but I guess I didn't expect them to be working in U-boats side by side with German sailers.

It could be the Dutchmen were there willingly. Sadly, Holland was the source of a large number of willing turncoats to the German side during the war. Conversely, the Dutch also created one of the most effective resistance movements during the war as well.

I just remember hearing the stories my Opa used to tell my about the Germans taking him and putting him on a train for a work camp. He jumped off and made it back home eventually. He was lucky. I guess I didn't realize that many Dutchmen went so willingly.

Very lucky indeed.

As to the collaborators bit, it's one of those thing I suspect a lot of countries are loathe to bring up. But in Holland's case, there were enough volunteers to form the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland