Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest

by Stephen E. Ambrose

Easy Company was about to enter its fifth country. The men had liked Britain and the English people enormously. They did not like the French, who seemed to them ungrateful, sullen, lazy, and dirty. They had a special relationship with the Belgians because of their intimate association with the civilians of Bastogne, who had done whatever they could to support the Americans. They loved the Dutch. Brave, resourceful, overwhelmingly grateful, the best organized underground in Europe, cellars full of food hidden from the Germans but given to the Americans, clean, hard-working, honest were only some of the compliments the men showered on the Dutch. Now they were going to meet the Germans. For the first time they would be on front lines inside enemy territory, living with enemy civilians. And if the rumor proved true, the one that said instead of living in foxholes they were going to be billeted in German houses, they would be getting to know the Germans in an intimate fashion. This would be especially true once the Ruhr pocket was eliminated and the advance across central Germany began. Then they would be staying in a different house every night, under conditions in which the occupants would have only a few minutes notice of their arrival. They would be coming as conquerors who had been told to distrust all Germans and who had been forbidden by the nonfraternization policy to have any contact with German civilians. But except for Liebgott and a few others, they had no undying h...