D DAY Through German Eyes 2

by Holger Eckhertz

The films changed many things. The films? What films are these? I mean, the newsreel films of the camps, the concentration camps. You have seen these films, just as we all have. I remember when the films arrived, we were brought into the mess hall one morning, this was in May 1945, just after the war ended, and we had to watch the film. I think it was called ‘This was your Germany’ or ‘This was Germany.’ It was specifically made to be shown to German people. They were showing it all over Germany, in every town and village. It went on for about thirty minutes, all the things from Dachau and Belsen and those camps. When the film ended, the American guards refused to speak to us, or even to look at us. Even the guards who had been friendly and helpful, they refused to look at us. They just shouted commands and locked us in the camp with the food. There was some kind of regulation that said we had to be given food, and they could not break this regulation, apparently. What emotion did you experience on seeing the films of the concentration camps? Some of us said that it was a hoax. Most of us knew, I think, deep down, that it was true, and that this was what the regime of the Third Reich was capable of doing. One man, who had also been in Normandy, said to me, ‘Is that why we fought, then?’ That was the question. Was that why we fought all those years? Because we were soldiers being ordered to do our duty, and our duty was for nothing if it was to defend all of that in...