The 12th SS Hitler Jugend was the most fanatical. Its officers had told their men before the battle that any SS soldier who surrendered without having suffered incapacitating wounds would be treated as a traitor. Hitler Jugend soldiers, if taken alive, would reject transfusions of foreign blood, preferring to die for the Führer. One could never imagine British or American prisoners of war wanting to die for King George VI, Churchill or President Roosevelt. Of course, not all German soldiers were such true believers. Many in ordinary line infantry divisions simply wanted to survive, to see
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