SOUTHEAST LIVING HISTORY SOCIETY
WWII
KAMPFGRUPPE MECKLENBURG
2nd SS "Das Reich"
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Pioneer * Infantry * Signals * DRK
HISTORICAL REENACTORS
History Preserved
HISTORY PRESERVED
In 2011 a Panzer Ausf J model Panzer built in 1944 at the Nibelungen Werke, St Valentin, Austria was put on display in the UK. What a find. A Panzer IV discovered in the woodlands near the Estonia/Russian border. It had been damaged by a shell that hit in WWII, but after years of work was able to be restored. Although hidden in dense woods it appears that scavengers had stripped the mechanical parts from the tank. I was quite a task to bring the Panzer IV back to its original condition.
On the front plates you can still find evidence of hits from Russian 14.5 mm anti-tank rifles. There was even a live armor piercing shell in the gun breech. The team that restored the tank searched throughout Eastern Europe to obtain drive sprockets, track links, gear box parts, and all the components to restore the engine that had been damaged severely during the battle. There are markings of the Panzer Lehr Division consistent with other tanks from the Normandy campaign.
Just to give you a history on those that worked to restore the vehicle. Stephen Lamonby is an entrepreneur with a film company called Plus Film Ltd. He has been working for years restoring equipment to its original condition to be used in military films. His goal is to provide authenticity to military vehicles used during filming.
In 2008 he completed restoration of a Panzer 38tF. This was found in Hungary half buried in the ground. His company has supplied vehicles for major productions including Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Charlotte Grey. We are pleased to hear that so much effort is being put in to preserving the authenticity of an era that is quickly fading from memory with the passing of time.
WWII POWs
​​We are often reminded of the inhumanity that occurred in occupied Germany during WWII. What we often do not hear about are the victims of war that were brought to the U.S. and other Axis nations as POWs. Every life has a value. Everyone involved in the war had a family. Each individual has rights.
Think about the facts of the war that we hear less about. By the end of the war 400,000 German, Italian, and Japanese POWs were still imprisoned in the U.S. Millions of others were held though out Allied lands. Over a million German POWs sent to work in Siberia at the war’s end did not return as they had been worked to death. In both the U.S. and other nations forced labor cost many prisoners their lives.
There was, however, an inadvertent effect of bringing soldiers to camps in the U.S. These POWs were used for working on farms, road construction, and building repair to name a few jobs. As prisoners interacted with U.S. citizens many individuals following Nazi ideology found that the propaganda fed by those in power was not true to reality. They saw first-hand democracy in action. Many Germans had positive statements about the conditions of the U.S. upon their return to their own country after the war. This new perspective inadvertently encouraged future generations in Germany to have a view of the U.S. free from the propaganda of the past.
The reverse happened with those POWs returning to the U.S. from Germany. Many prisoners reported a cold indifference to them as human beings. This later affected the U.S. view of German’s as a whole, continuing some of the prejudices that had spread through the war. It is important that we acknowledge that these changes of mind set occurred, that we learn from this outcome, and that we move forward in conflict with reflection on the past.