WW2 Waffen SS German reviews Private Ryan

[Weasel]

This is an article I read, a letter sent by Mr. Hans Schmidt to mr. Spieldberg about his movie. Mr. Schmidt served in the SS from the Bulge onwards:

Dear Mr. Spielberg:

Permit me, a twice wounded veteran of the Waffen-SS, and participant in three campaigns (Battle of the Bulge, Hungary and Austria) to comment on your picture, "Saving Private Ryan."

Having read many of the accolades of this undoubtedly successful and, shall we say, "impressive," film, I hope you don't mind some criticism from both a German and a German-American point of view.

Apart from the carnage immediately at the beginning of the story, during the invasion at Omaha Beach, whereon I cannot comment because I was not there; many of the battle scenes seemed unreal.

You made some commendable efforts to provide authenticity through the use of several pieces of original-looking German equipment, for instance, the Schützenpanzerwagen (SPW), the MG 42s, and the Kettenkrad.

And, while the appearance of German infantry soldiers of the regular Army in the Normandy bunkers was not well depicted, the Waffen SS in the street fighting at the end of the film were quite properly outfitted.

My comment about the unreality of the battle scenes has to do with the fact that the Waffen-SS would not have acted as you depicted them in "Private Ryan."

While it was a common sight in battle to see both American and Russian infantry congregate around their tanks when approaching our lines, this rarely if ever occurred with the Waffen-SS.

(The first Americans I saw during the Battle of the Bulge were about a dozen dead GIs bunched around a burned-out, self-propelled, tracked howitzer.)

Furthermore, almost all the German soldiers seen in "Private Ryan" had their heads shaved, or wore closely cropped hair, something totally in conflict with reality. Perhaps you were confusing, in your mind, German soldiers with Russians of the time.

Or else, your Jewishness came to the fore, and you wanted to draw a direct line back from today's skinheads to the Waffen-SS and other German soldiers of the Third Reich.

Also, for my unit you should have used 18 or 19-year old boys instead of older guys. The average age, including general officers of the heroic Hitlerjugend division at Caen, was 19 years!

The scene where the GI shows his Jewish "Star of David" medallion to German POWs and tells them: "Ich Jude, ich Jude!" is so outrageous as to be funny.

I can tell you what German soldiers would have said to each other if such an incident had actually ever occurred: "That guy is nuts!"

You don't seem to know that for the average German soldier of World War II, of whatever unit, the race, color or "religion" of the enemy didn't matter at all. He didn't know and he didn't care.

Furthermore, you committed a serious error in judgment when, in the opening scenes of "Private Ryan" you had the camera pan from the lone grave with the Jewish star to all the Christian crosses in the cemetery.

I know what you wanted to say but I am sure that I was not the only one who immediately thereafter glanced over all the other hundreds of crosses one could see, to discover whether somewhere else was another Star of David.

And you know the answer. In fact, you generated exactly the opposite effect of what you had intended. Your use of that scene makes a lie out of the claim now put forth by Jewish organizations that during World War II Jews volunteered for service in numbers greater than their percentage of the general population, and that their blood sacrifice was (therefore) higher also.

I visited the large Luxembourg military cemetery where General Patton is buried and counted the Jewish stars on the gravestones. I was shocked by their absence.

After World War I, some German Jewish leaders mounted the same ruse: They claimed then and still do to this day that, "12,000 Jews gave their lives for the Fatherland," which would also have made their general participation higher, which it was not. But perhaps the "12,000" figure is intended as a symbol denoting, "from our point of view, we did enough."

During World War II, as now, about a quarter of the American population considered itself German-American. Knowing the patriotic fervor German-Americans harbor for America, we can be certain that their numbers in the Armed Forces were equal or higher than their percentage of the population.

Yet in "Saving Private Ryan" there was not one single German name to be heard or seen among the Americans.

Did you forget Nimitz, Arnold, Spaatz or even Eisenhower? Well, perhaps Capt. Miller from Pennsylvania was a German whose name had been anglicized. In omitting the American Germans you seem to have taken a cue from the White House at whose contemporary state dinners rarely someone with a German name can be found.

Well, maybe someone thinks that the abundance of German sounding names such as Goldberg, Rosenthal, Silverstein and Spielberg satisfies the need for "German-American" representation.

My final comment concerns the depictions of the shooting of German POWs immediately after a fire fight. A perusal of American World War II literature indicates that such incidents were much more common than is generally admitted, and more often than not, such transgressions against the laws of war and chivalry are often or usually excused, "because the GIs got mad at the Germans who had just killed one of their dearest comrades".

In other words, the anger and the war crime following it was both understandable and, ipso facto excusable. In "Private Ryan" you seem to agree with this stance since you permit only one of the soldiers, namely, the acknowledged coward, to say that one does not shoot enemy soldiers who had put down their arms.

As a former German soldier I can assure you that among us we did not have this, what I would call, un-Aryan mindset.

I remember well, when in January of 1945 we sat together with ten captured Americans after a fierce battle, and the GIs were genuinely surprised that we treated them almost as buddies, without rancor.

If you want to know why, I can tell you. We had not suffered from years of anti-enemy hate propaganda, as was the case with American and British soldiers whose basic sense of chivalry had often (but not always) been dulled by watching too many anti-German war movies usually made by your brethren.

Article is here: http://www.revisionisthistory.org/reviews.html

[Weasel]

Upon reading a second time you can tell he still has some hate for Jews.

[Cuckoo]

Me and Hans have one thing in common. I´m not a fan of that film either.

I´m into Thin Red Line much more.

[Gila]

In one point of the film that was made up with no basis of proof or fact (hollywood style),was when a sniper was shot in the eye through his own scope when the sun glinted on it giving a marksman a target.

It was proven not possible on the Mythbusters program useing period scopes and late versions the bullet just splinters and never goes all the way through so the worst would be a black eye.

I still like the movie though,Thin red line is exellent also,but "The longest day" was also great movie IMO.

[Weasel]

I don't care for Thin Red Line myself. As for SPR, the story is too mushy, but you must admit the battle scenes, for the most part, are great. Taking on the MG42 frontal, total BS. Germans running down the streets, only if they don't like living. Band of Brothers and The Pacific still dwarf both these movies IMO.

[jonnymacbrown]

Upon reading a second time you can tell he still has some hate for Jews.

I don't think you have to read it twice to get that. jonny

---

Me and Hans have one thing in common. I´m not a fan of that film either.

I´m into Thin Red Line much more.

I was totally stupid to have the rescue squad chatting loudly as they calmly strolled behind the lines through enemy territory. jonny

[PzHeinZ]

It would be very easy to throw in the Nazi Card reading this especially when the writer is a former SS member, wouldn´t it? =)

But seriously speaking the man has a point. He makes (IMO undeniable) remarks about the SPR and that Spielbergs religious background has something to do with it. I cannot see hate in what he says, yet I don´t know if mr. Schmidts opinions are accurate compared e.g. Spielbergs underlinings about the number of Jewish gravestones at Omaha beach graveyard.

SPR looks great and is realistic for the most part (of course I have not been at the front myself to know for sure), but tends depict the Germans amateurish which many allied D-Day veterans would say to be untrue I´m sure...

If I had to pick a kind of "hollywood war movie" that I like my choice would be Eastwoods Letters from Iwo Jima.

[burroughs]

Aw, yes, yet another smartass frontline old hand "defending what we were fighting for " and retelling and at the same time reinterpreting the history, albeit in a bit offside and off-topic way.

Firstly, the SS was an all-volunteer formation and even given the situation and the historic and sociological circumstances that makes him a nazi. It does not diminish the fact he had seen certain things himself and is able to comment on that in terms of his experience. Of course , he was "only folowing the others / orders ( deliberately ) and answering the nation's call ... " Perhaps some of You would like to listen some more of the story however I think them, the nazi, had the chance to make their point already and no doubt produced many more not only Jewish graves, but without any headstones. Is that what he is up to?Is that the difference?

Yes, the chivalrous and courteous SS-men, the avantgarde of military professionalism and the spearhead of the white man aryan civilisation. On reading Cornelious Ryan's "A Bridge too Far" I was displeased with the faint admiration for the SS medical officer one Egon Skalka who treated the British paras humanely and even managed to talk both sides into a ceasfire to evacuate the wounded.Pity they didn't have him at Malmedy,eh?And in Kiev at Babi Jar when the Ubermensch entered and started their reign.

Sure they were so "humane" in the latter stages of the war and towards the enemy armed forces POWs. They knew well already what was in the offing.I read that once they even saved one Red Army trooper who was carrying a newborn baby at Kharkov back in late winter '42/'43. Very moving - too bad they killed many more of both.And they were always so sacrificial in the heroic struggle against unarmed civilians.What other armed forces had an entire brigade comprising of the worst kind criminals straight from the prison cells?Have You heard about the infamous Dirlewangers?Shall we listen to those vets, too? On how to slaughter civvies in Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine and Belorussia and perish on the first contact with the Red Army regulars?

Finally, I know that some of You folks are going to comment that we should focus on the proffessional side and stop judging and leave the moral stuff aside. Some of people admire the SS scum so much that it makes me sick.We all are human being first and last above all. The nazi had they say and the results were clearly seen. It's been over seventy years now. Can't they just shut the f**k up at last including Mr. Grass who, frankly speaking, seems to be quite right with regard to the Israeli treatment of Palestine?Yet another Waff(Fuckk)en SS vet. And his fellow countryman buddy the ex-HJ pope from Vatican? Maybe if there's nobody listening anymore to that venomous blabbering? ...

Pardon my brute language if any and not the outlook.

[Weasel]

I agree that what was acceptable in 1941 was unacceptable in 45 when the writing was on the wall. It is like a thief, he is only a thief when he knows he won't be caught.

[jonnymacbrown]

It would be very easy to throw in the Nazi Card reading this especially when the writer is a former SS member, wouldn´t it? =)

Maybe I'm wrong, but SPR was the 1st and only American film I've ever seen showing American soldiers murdering enemy POW's in cold blood. jonny