A German officer eats C-rations as he sits amid the ruins of Saarbrücken, a German city and stronghold along the Siegfried Line, in early spring of 1945. [1600 x 1199]
I wonder what branch and rank he was? I have never seen epaullettes like those before.
Tragicat
What a stark photo. Thanks for posting.
A pretty good book about this period in German history is The End by Ian Kershaw. It gets into the mindset of the Nazi Party leadership and why resistance was carried on in an absolutely hopeless and increasingly absurd situation. Some of the vignettes about pointless cruelties inflicted on innocent civilians by military and government officials who knew they were themselves doomed is shocking but important to understand how warped and cowed Germany became under the Nazis.
TL/DR – the people in charge had no hope under the Allies, opposition had more or less finally been crushed after the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, and the military situation made the practical realities of life desperate – making life cheap. Really good, accessible read to turn folks who may know a little about it into more sophisticated students of history!
![A German officer eats C-rations as he sits amid the ruins of Saarbrücken, a German city and stronghold along the Siegfried Line, in early spring of 1945. [1600 x 1199]](https://i.redd.it/p62pe0x4r9p51.jpg)
Longelance
I wonder what branch and rank he was? I have never seen epaullettes like those before.
Tragicat
What a stark photo. Thanks for posting.
A pretty good book about this period in German history is The End by Ian Kershaw. It gets into the mindset of the Nazi Party leadership and why resistance was carried on in an absolutely hopeless and increasingly absurd situation. Some of the vignettes about pointless cruelties inflicted on innocent civilians by military and government officials who knew they were themselves doomed is shocking but important to understand how warped and cowed Germany became under the Nazis.
TL/DR – the people in charge had no hope under the Allies, opposition had more or less finally been crushed after the assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, and the military situation made the practical realities of life desperate – making life cheap. Really good, accessible read to turn folks who may know a little about it into more sophisticated students of history!