Where would YOU serve in WW2?

Yes, eastern front...



Here´s some Germans after Stalingrad starting their long journey to Siberia..

 

Of course it was not nice at all! We all know the Eastern Front was HELL ON EARTH and the most brutal confrontation ever. My point was that it was the best theatre for infantry fighting.

But if you see it that way then why should we want to serve in WWII? Risk our lives in a horrible conflict, even if it is in a ship, a submarine, a plane or tank?

 

Yes, I agree.

 

Alright, I'll bite. Assuming that the clock is rolled back 60 or so years and that otherwise I am still the same person career and experiance-wise I would have certainly immediately been promoted to Lieutenant in the US Navy (as were many career Chief Petty Officers both active and reserve (me) on the outbreak of WW II in the US)and assigned as a division officer aboard a larger unit (most likely a cruiser) for 4 - 6 months and then promoted to Lieutenant Commander and Department Head in Engineering (my background).
If my ship wasn't sunk by the end of 1942 I would even survive the war. I would have ended the war promoted to Commander. After the war (as I would have started out with 24 years of experiance)I would have retired and resumed my civilian career.
Not glamorous but it's what I do well.

 

I would spend the war selling doughnuts to GI's in London...

or

in the assault regiment of the Fallschirmjager.

Not much difference between the two...

 

82nd Airborne Division

 

Well, if we we simply shifted my life back 60 years that would mean I would be commanding an anti-tank squad in the glorious and superbly equipped Swedish Army *cough* *cough*.

Pretty safe - no combat, and probably no anti-tank weapons either...

 

Unless you volunteered for Finnish frontier...

"We show you where the iron crosses grow..."

 

Definitely the Afrika Korps!

 

For the newest members...

 

Well I would have to say with the 101st airborne. It would definetly put me to the test and I love to face a challenge!

 

I wouldn't have serbed anywhere.... after repeatedly commenting all aspects of nazi ideology with "This is illogical", I would have ended in KZ Mauthausen very soon.

 

I would have loved to serve in the American Air Force as a pilot or a gunner in a B-17 or B-24, but I would have been pretty flexible in where I wanted to be if I joined during that time. I would probably have done my best to get into a high ranking position and work on attack plans and so-forth (probably be a better general than a volunteer).

 

Now that´s logical!

 

I think it's ofitial... 60% of forum members would be paratroopers...

Finally! Then I would have someone to chat there...

Or would you like to be Ike?

 

Finally! Then I would have someone to chat there...
</font>[/QUOTE]As you were born in Germany, why would they have sent you to Mauthausen?

 

Knight, you should know that being German didn't save you from anything! (Look at the SHOAH and Gellately threads...

But I have many things in my files that the nazis wouldn't have liked...

 

You missed the point of my question... why would they send you, born in Germany, to the KZ MAUTHAUSEN in (former) Austria?

 

AH! Bloody Austrians! They make all the trouble!

 

I have nothing against Austrians, actually one of my favourite places is Wien, but here´s something interesting. Like you said..

What was Austria's real record? It begins with the fact that Adolf Hitler and Adolf Eichmann were both Austrians, but there's far more: "Austrians were disproportionately involved in planning and implementing the 'Final Solution,'" Wistrich adds; 80 percent of Eichmann's staff were Austrians.



I wonder if anyone else has heard or this?

http://www.eppc.org/news/newsID.137/news_detail.asp