Wonder what the feeling would have been like around the club to have the German POWs "working" at the club.
Of course its a completely different scenario but didnt Bert Trautman have a very challenging beginning, and had to convince a lot of people who didn't want him around Man City
In the early fifties Middlesbrough had an Italian goalkeeper Ugolini who I had always assumed to be an ex Pow. Turns out his family moved to Scotland when he was young. 😂
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
My Nan always said how sorry she felt for the Italian POW's who were used to empty the bins. They were really only kids and always used to smile and say hello to my mum who was a baby. You weren't allowed to interact with them but she used to slip them apples from her trees in the garden.
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
My first wife was German and her uncle was captured and interned in England. He was conscripted when he was 17. He told me that being captured the British soldiers was the best thing that could have happened to him. He was interned in the midlands somewhere (He did tell me, but I can’t remember). After the war he met an English girl, they married and moved near Norwich and stayed there for the rest of his life.
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
My first wife was German and her uncle was captured and interned in England. He was conscripted when he was 17. He told me that being captured the British soldiers was the best thing that could have happened to him. He was interned in the midlands somewhere (He did tell me, but I can’t remember). After the war he met an English girl, they married and moved near Norwich and stayed there for the rest of his life.
Sounds similar to my dad’s stepdad. He was young and conscripted from Belgium, captured and interred in Wales and ended up staying and marrying my Grandma.
My Dad told me that just after WW2 he played in a game and there was an Italian there who was light years ahead of anyone else on the pitch. Turned out he’d played for Italy, not the full national team but something like Italy ‘B’. They lost a game they were expected to win, and when they got back to Rome they were basically drafted into the army and on the next plane to Abyssinia (where Mussolini was waging a war). WW2 started a couple of years later and he ended up a POW over here.
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
My Nan always said how sorry she felt for the Italian POW's who were used to empty the bins. They were really only kids and always used to smile and say hello to my mum who was a baby. You weren't allowed to interact with them but she used to slip them apples from her trees in the garden.
In the film Superbob, Natalia Tena us filmed outside the Italian POW huts that were on Peckham Rye until quite recently. There’s just an information board now, next to the cafe.
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
That's a great story. Also makes you realise how lucky people were to be taken prisoner in the West rather than the East.
For context (taken from Wiki); 91,000 Germans got taken at Stalingrad... Only 5,000 returned home
If we’d been invaded and treated as untermensch (sub-human), you wonder how nice we’d have been to German POWs.
Yeah its very true in that regard - Although did the Wehrmacht get involved that badly, or was it primarily the SS who were the utter arseholes out there?
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
That's a great story. Also makes you realise how lucky people were to be taken prisoner in the West rather than the East.
For context (taken from Wiki); 91,000 Germans got taken at Stalingrad... Only 5,000 returned home
True, but given the chance to withdraw the German High Command chose not to. The 6th Army capitulating in Stalingrad was the turning point of WW2. I feel sorry for the soldiers as individuals. However, they invaded another country, raped, murdered and looted their way across it and when it all went sideways expected to be treated under the terms of the Geneva convention. I would say after General (Field Marshal) Paulus surrendered there were still German Soldiers that refused to give up arms, those guys had some balls. Here is a short docu film about that..
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
That's a great story. Also makes you realise how lucky people were to be taken prisoner in the West rather than the East.
For context (taken from Wiki); 91,000 Germans got taken at Stalingrad... Only 5,000 returned home
True, but given the chance to withdraw the German High Command chose not to. The 6th Army capitulating in Stalingrad was the turning point of WW2. I feel sorry for the soldiers as individuals. However, they invaded another country, raped, murdered and looted their way across it and when it all went sideways expected to be treated under the terms of the Geneva convention. I would say after General (Field Marshal) Paulus surrendered there were still German Soldiers that refused to give up arms, those guys had some balls. Here is a short docu film about that..
Cheers will take a look at the video - For context, I thought it was Hitler who personally refused to allow the 6th Army to retreat from Stalingrad? - As he allowed it to become a personal battle between him and Stalin.
He of course only promoted Paulus to Field Marshal in the end, because he expected him to commit suicide
Yeah its very true in that regard - Although did the Wehrmacht get involved that badly, or was it primarily the SS who were the utter arseholes out there?
There is no doubt that the Wehrmacht often behaved atrociously in Russia and other places in the east.
I think it is fair to say that the regular German army was less murderous than the SS, but often it was a matter of degree.
As an aside, my father was in the navy during the war, serving in an LCI in the Med. They often dropped off SBS troops on the Greek islands and Yugoslavia. One one occasion the SBS brought back some captured German troops to the vessel and started torturing them for information. My father remembers the Germans were screaming. The skipper of the boat was outraged and made his displeasure known to commander of the SBS. Apparently this brought an end to it.
I found out recently that there was a German POW camp just down the road from me in Walderslade that held around 400. Seems that they were basically allowed to roam the area without to much hassle from the locals and seemed to get on well with them.
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
That's a great story. Also makes you realise how lucky people were to be taken prisoner in the West rather than the East.
For context (taken from Wiki); 91,000 Germans got taken at Stalingrad... Only 5,000 returned home
True, but given the chance to withdraw the German High Command chose not to. The 6th Army capitulating in Stalingrad was the turning point of WW2. I feel sorry for the soldiers as individuals. However, they invaded another country, raped, murdered and looted their way across it and when it all went sideways expected to be treated under the terms of the Geneva convention. I would say after General (Field Marshal) Paulus surrendered there were still German Soldiers that refused to give up arms, those guys had some balls. Here is a short docu film about that..
Cheers will take a look at the video - For context, I thought it was Hitler who personally refused to allow the 6th Army to retreat from Stalingrad? - As he allowed it to become a personal battle between him and Stalin.
He of course only promoted Paulus to Field Marshal in the end, because he expected him to commit suicidetur
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
That's a great story. Also makes you realise how lucky people were to be taken prisoner in the West rather than the East.
For context (taken from Wiki); 91,000 Germans got taken at Stalingrad... Only 5,000 returned home
True, but given the chance to withdraw the German High Command chose not to. The 6th Army capitulating in Stalingrad was the turning point of WW2. I feel sorry for the soldiers as individuals. However, they invaded another country, raped, murdered and looted their way across it and when it all went sideways expected to be treated under the terms of the Geneva convention. I would say after General (Field Marshal) Paulus surrendered there were still German Soldiers that refused to give up arms, those guys had some balls. Here is a short docu film about that..
Cheers will take a look at the video - For context, I thought it was Hitler who personally refused to allow the 6th Army to retreat from Stalingrad? - As he allowed it to become a personal battle between him and Stalin.
He of course only promoted Paulus to Field Marshal in the end, because he expected him to commit suicid
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
That's a great story. Also makes you realise how lucky people were to be taken prisoner in the West rather than the East.
For context (taken from Wiki); 91,000 Germans got taken at Stalingrad... Only 5,000 returned home
True, but given the chance to withdraw the German High Command chose not to. The 6th Army capitulating in Stalingrad was the turning point of WW2. I feel sorry for the soldiers as individuals. However, they invaded another country, raped, murdered and looted their way across it and when it all went sideways expected to be treated under the terms of the Geneva convention. I would say after General (Field Marshal) Paulus surrendered there were still German Soldiers that refused to give up arms, those guys had some balls. Here is a short docu film about that..
Cheers will take a look at the video - For context, I thought it was Hitler who personally refused to allow the 6th Army to retreat from Stalingrad? - As he allowed it to become a personal battle between him and Stalin.
He of course only promoted Paulus to Field Marshal in the end, because he expected him to commit suicide
From my understanding Hitler made the call, but he received assurances from Goering that despite the 6th Army being encircled and running out of supplies that they could be sufficiently supplied by Airdrops from the Luftwaffe. There were some air drops but the whole thing was a complete disaster, soldiers were eating dead dogs and rats etc etc.
I put the Field Marshall in brackets for that reason. No German Field Marshall had ever surrendered before.
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
That's a great story. Also makes you realise how lucky people were to be taken prisoner in the West rather than the East.
For context (taken from Wiki); 91,000 Germans got taken at Stalingrad... Only 5,000 returned home
If we’d been invaded and treated as untermensch (sub-human), you wonder how nice we’d have been to German POWs.
Yeah its very true in that regard - Although did the Wehrmacht get involved that badly, or was it primarily the SS who were the utter arseholes out there?
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
That's a great story. Also makes you realise how lucky people were to be taken prisoner in the West rather than the East.
For context (taken from Wiki); 91,000 Germans got taken at Stalingrad... Only 5,000 returned home
If we’d been invaded and treated as untermensch (sub-human), you wonder how nice we’d have been to German POWs.
Yeah its very true in that regard - Although did the Wehrmacht get involved that badly, or was it primarily the SS who were the utter arseholes out there?
I think the Wehrmacht were very much involved. The Wehmacht were issued orders that they could basically do what they wanted and in most cases they did. There were a few officers higher up the chain of command that disagreed with this edict but were often replaced if they made to much of a fuss. As the previous poster stated they really did treat those in the East as Sub human and were pumped full of movies and literature telling them that was the case.
A lot of German POWs had good experiences in the UK. On the whole, they seem to have been treated well and for large parts there seems to have been an acceptance that the war once the war had finished, most people were happy to move on.
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
That's a great story. Also makes you realise how lucky people were to be taken prisoner in the West rather than the East.
For context (taken from Wiki); 91,000 Germans got taken at Stalingrad... Only 5,000 returned home
If we’d been invaded and treated as untermensch (sub-human), you wonder how nice we’d have been to German POWs.
Yeah its very true in that regard - Although did the Wehrmacht get involved that badly, or was it primarily the SS who were the utter arseholes out there?
There were people, SS, Gestapo, civilian administrators (Gauleiters), who were specifically tasked with being the biggest arseholes they could and there were some in the army who weren’t OK with the way the Soviets were treated but generally they were all in on it.
My friend's late father, Fritz, was a POW. He was from Silesia, and after the war his home town ended up behind the iron curtain, in Czechoslovakia. So he effectively had nowhere to return to. His mother came to England as part of the German red-cross to help repatriate the POWs, and they met and married and decided to make Britain their home. Fritz managed to wangle himself a very good job as an invisible mender at Church's shoes. A highly skilled job that actually died when he retired. He was the only person in the country who could do it by that time. After initial hostility they very quickly became accepted and loved by the people around them in Northampton.
The other story I have was my mum's, about Italian POWs in the east end. They were pretty much free to come and go as they pleased, much like the Germans that cafckev describes. They were not really interested in escaping, the war was Mussolini's war, not theirs. One day mum (who was about 12 at the time) and her older sister were in Woolworths and there were some Italians wandering about looking longingly at the pick-n-mix, her sister was more than a little interested in these handsome olive skinned chaps, so she got my mum to go over and offer them some sweet ration cupons so they could buy some chocolate. Of course while the locals were pretty tolerant of the POWs, they would have drawn the line at "collaboration" and my innocent mum would have been in all kinds of trouble had anyone seen what she was doing - her sister wasn't daft...
My dear old dad got turned down for the navy when he failed the medical and somehow ended up in a reserved occupation in a diary. (One of those things I so wish I had sat down with him and talked about properly when I had the chance).
One of his jobs was to march (I use the world loosely - I think they ambled!) some Italian prisoners of war from a local camp down to the dairy where they worked all day and then bring them back at night. He did this single handedly. I asked him once if he carried a gun and he just looked at me as if I was mad - no need he said, the Italians were safe, had not the faintest wish to escape (the security at the camp was incredibly lax) and were quite happy to sit the war out. And, as above, as the war went on the Italians were just allowed to wander freely around.
POWs from the Camp on Shooters Hill Golf course and from RAF Kidbrooke, were used as Labourers in the building of the Evelyn Estate in Kidbrooke, for families bombed out in Deptford. The area was Manor Farm during the war, the closest Dairy Farm to London. My father-in-law, who was born in Woolwich Road in 1919, opposite the Dog Track, called the Farm the "Nine Fields" when he was a boy. The Evelyn Estate is based around Dursley and Holbourne Road.
We had an Italian family move onto the Green a few years ago. I've told them their house was built in 1946 by Italian POWs. Built by Italians, lived in by Italians 70'years later. Strange world.
An excerpt from Spark In Their Veins. Shooters Hill POW Camp 1020...."In the very severe winter of 1946/47, PoWs volunteered to clear the snow from the First Division Charlton Athletic’s football ground so that a regular weekend game could be played. About 300 PoW volunteers were “guests of honour! at the game. “When our part in saving the game was acknowledged over the loudspeakers, there was much cheering and backslapping, and many cigarettes came our way!”
POWs from the Camp on Shooters Hill Golf course and from RAF Kidbrooke, were used as Labourers in the building of the Evelyn Estate in Kidbrooke, for families bombed out in Deptford. The area was Manor Farm during the war, the closest Dairy Farm to London. My father-in-law, who was born in Woolwich Road in 1919, opposite the Dog Track, called the Farm the "Nine Fields" when he was a boy. The Evelyn Estate is based around Dursley and Holbourne Road.
We had an Italian family move onto the Green a few years ago. I've told them their house was built in 1946 by Italian POWs. Built by Italians, lived in by Italians 70'years later. Strange world.
Isn't this where the expression " Jerry Built" Came From ?
POWs from the Camp on Shooters Hill Golf course and from RAF Kidbrooke, were used as Labourers in the building of the Evelyn Estate in Kidbrooke, for families bombed out in Deptford. The area was Manor Farm during the war, the closest Dairy Farm to London. My father-in-law, who was born in Woolwich Road in 1919, opposite the Dog Track, called the Farm the "Nine Fields" when he was a boy. The Evelyn Estate is based around Dursley and Holbourne Road.
We had an Italian family move onto the Green a few years ago. I've told them their house was built in 1946 by Italian POWs. Built by Italians, lived in by Italians 70'years later. Strange world.
Isn't this where the expression " Jerry Built" Came From ?
Comments
Of course its a completely different scenario but didnt Bert Trautman have a very challenging beginning, and had to convince a lot of people who didn't want him around Man City
We had a lovely old chap living in our road called Ernst Wedding, who was ex-Luftwaffe. Really nice fella who was an ex-POW and stayed to marry an English lady. He told me about his time serving in Russia and how he thought he would be taken to Canada as a POW (via Nebraska it seems!) but I think he ended up in Liverpool.
He said that in Russia, they would drop bombs from low-level and then watch as the duds just bounced like footballs on the frozen ground!
He became a regular at RAF Northolt reunions and was very friendly with the ex-RAF men. Before I knew his background, I saw him on a documentary about The Blitz called War Walks (I think). I couldn't believe they were interviewing Ernst who lived at No.1 Pepys Close, with his wife and their little white dog.
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=GwC0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT92&lpg=PT92&dq=ernst+wedding+luftwaffe&source=bl&ots=6Z2dMhJc-T&sig=ACfU3U25EvDFQ51RHR6d-460xxRSulneWA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiu0K395tH1AhUDhlwKHaLRDuoQ6AF6BAgdEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false
An excellent documentary - The Germans We Kept
He was conscripted when he was 17.
He told me that being captured the British soldiers was the best thing that could have happened to him. He was interned in the midlands somewhere (He did tell me, but I can’t remember). After the war he met an English girl, they married and moved near Norwich and stayed there for the rest of his life.
He of course only promoted Paulus to Field Marshal in the end, because he expected him to commit suicide
I think it is fair to say that the regular German army was less murderous than the SS, but often it was a matter of degree.
As an aside, my father was in the navy during the war, serving in an LCI in the Med. They often dropped off SBS troops on the Greek islands and Yugoslavia. One one occasion the SBS brought back some captured German troops to the vessel and started torturing them for information. My father remembers the Germans were screaming. The skipper of the boat was outraged and made his displeasure known to commander of the SBS. Apparently this brought an end to it.
I put the Field Marshall in brackets for that reason. No German Field Marshall had ever surrendered before.
The other story I have was my mum's, about Italian POWs in the east end. They were pretty much free to come and go as they pleased, much like the Germans that cafckev describes. They were not really interested in escaping, the war was Mussolini's war, not theirs. One day mum (who was about 12 at the time) and her older sister were in Woolworths and there were some Italians wandering about looking longingly at the pick-n-mix, her sister was more than a little interested in these handsome olive skinned chaps, so she got my mum to go over and offer them some sweet ration cupons so they could buy some chocolate. Of course while the locals were pretty tolerant of the POWs, they would have drawn the line at "collaboration" and my innocent mum would have been in all kinds of trouble had anyone seen what she was doing - her sister wasn't daft...
One of his jobs was to march (I use the world loosely - I think they ambled!) some Italian prisoners of war from a local camp down to the dairy where they worked all day and then bring them back at night. He did this single handedly. I asked him once if he carried a gun and he just looked at me as if I was mad - no need he said, the Italians were safe, had not the faintest wish to escape (the security at the camp was incredibly lax) and were quite happy to sit the war out. And, as above, as the war went on the Italians were just allowed to wander freely around.
A side of the war you don't often hear about.
We had an Italian family move onto the Green a few years ago. I've told them their house was built in 1946 by Italian POWs. Built by Italians, lived in by Italians 70'years later. Strange world.
“When our part in saving the game was acknowledged over the loudspeakers, there was much cheering and backslapping, and many cigarettes came our way!”