OK here goes......
My dad was a teenager during the war. His brother(my uncle) was in the German Army's Death's Head Panzer Division and was killed on the Russian front. According to my dad, my uncle deserved it for the atrocities his division committed. I totally agree. My father's family are all Germans living in a village in Hungary where the majority of the population were Germans. As the war went on, my fathers family decided to pack up and move back to Germany as thousands of others were doing during the war. My fathers dad(my grandfather) was shot and killed by a Nazi captain when they all escaped from a burning train heading to Germany. The German Captain thought they were part of the group of non Germans that were being taken to one of the camps. When my grandmother pleaded with the German officer and showed him their papers, he just yelled at them to move on after buying my grandfather. Their ordeal started in 1943 and ended in 1944 when they finally made it back to Germany. My father was 17 in 1944 and saw that the Gestapo was grabbing anyone to fight in the war. My father was able to get himself smuggled all the way through Europe to England. From there he made it to the United States. He spoke english very well and to become a U.S. citizen at that time, you would need to join the military service of the United States. Yep, you guessed it, he joined the U.S. Army, got thru basic training as a medic and was shipped back to Europe and Germany in the final months of the war. He eventually located his family. While he was stationed in Germany post war, he met my mother, who also is German and guess what? My mothers father(my grandfather) was a Lieutenant Colonel in the German Luftwaffe. My grandfather was shot down over England early in the war and captured and spent the rest of the war in an English prison camp in Scotland. Also had 2 uncles on my mothers side of the family that were in the German army also. They made it thru the war. My 2 sons learned a lot of history from both my father and mother since they were both willing to talk about things that occurred there and in which they both had front row seats to the war.
A side note - my mother actually attended 2 youth rallies early on in the war because Adolf Hitler made the appearance and gave the speeches. As she stated, you had to attend since my grandfather was an officer in the German Military or people disappeared. We also have a picture of General Patton sitting in his command jeep parked under the house I was born in. Picture was taken by my mothers cousin. His division came thru our home town.
On a very humorous note, we moved to the United States in 1955. Growing up in the late 50's and 60's, all of the kids would play army in our neighborhood. Guess who had to be the Germans for the next 5-6 years.....me and my brother. We died very gracefully every week
