Saving Private Ryan: "Look, I washed for supper"

I decided to study German, not as curriculum just as something to do (and no, I'm not fluent) . And I decided to re-watch Saving Private Ryan for the one millionth time (love that movie) and I noticed that the "German's" surrendering on the beach scene weren't even speaking German. So I decided to go on Google and see what langue they were speaking. As it turn's out they where Czech and didn't say "Look I washed for supper" they said "Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!".

I found this interesting because this was a sorta obscure part of world war 2 when the Polish and Czech's were captured and forced to join the German army. I love how the director didn't need to put subtitles. This just shows that he knows even more about world war 2 than most people would think.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCbW7Gkgu2U

Where I found the translation: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120815/trivia?tab=tr&item=tr0751874

 

Interesting tidbit.

 

A Czech guy on another forum posted about that some years ago. When the film played in the Czech Republic, the audiences laughed their heads off at that scene. No sympathy at all for Czech soldiers or collaborators even these many years later.

 

A lot of men from Nazi -occupied territories were conscripted into the Wehrmacht, or 'volunteered' as an alternative to likely death in a camp. We might recall the Koreans who were conscripted into the Japanese army, captured by the Russians, conscripted into their army, captured and conscripted again by the Germans, and finally captured by the US Army in Normandy.

 

According to my Czech forum pal, Czechs usually joined the German army to avoid possible conscription into the Reich labor force in Germany. Joining the army got your family special privileges, extra rations, exemption from labor conscription for your siblings, etc. It might make sense at the time, but to everyone else you and your family were just dirty collaborators.

Czechs were treated pretty much like the Dutch, Danes or French rather than as Slavs like the Poles and so on. The occupation was harsh, but you could get by. Those who collaborated for extra privileges paid the price after the war.

 

Exactly, technically they weren't even occupied. In 1939 they asked Hitler for protection, and became Protectorate - ruled by their own, enjoying quite large support collaborationist government.

But it's bst their joined to avoid conscription into the Reich labor force, this happened rarely, and anyway it was vastly preferable to work in Germany than to be killed at Stalingrad or in Normandy.

Those people were former Czechoslovak Germans, half-Germans, one-quarter Germans or even Czechs who joined the victors, and declared themselves Germans (the Nazis actually weren't to picky in this, for them usually numbers mattered) without realising the war wasn't over, and actually would be long and gruesome.

Those out of thin air created Germans enjoyed many benefits unavailable for others, with one downside they were eventually conscripted into the German army. How stupid of them...

They became good Czechs again when the bullets started flying.

 

I am not sure about how the Czech legion treated Czech PW. It was a brigade sized force that screened Dunkerque for the last six months of the war.

The Free Polish army seems to have been quite understanding about the dilemma facing Poles of military age. They also needed replacements and reinforcements and by 1944 they recruited from German PW. There is even a story that at one of the Fallschirmjaeger captured in the Abbey at Cassino was recruited directly into the Polish Corps on the spot. Quite a few of the Poles captured on D day served in the Polish Armoured Division by the end of the war.

 

Those Poles were different, they weren't from the occupied territories but from the annexed by Germany lands.
Technically they were German citizens of "lesser value".
They were conscripted and had no choice. Those who thought they had usually ended up in concentration camps.

 

For f sake, dude, read some books. Czechoslovakia didn't asked for protection. Czechoslovakia was betrayed by the Allies in 1938 (via Munich Agreement) and then occupied by Nazi Germany in 1939. Term "protectorate" has nothing to do with act of protection. Also, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was completely controlled by Germany, ever heard about Reinhard Heydrich? Only Slovakia became a client state of Nazi Germany. You wrote - and pardon my words - a unbelievable bullshit.

 

Hello Corcus, I am not a moderator or patron, but I highly suggest you don't further use language like that, it's offensive, and it's not necessary. Regardless of whether wm was right or not, treating any and all members with respect is expected. I agree with your statement that Czechoslovakia did not want to be a part of Germany, and resisted the pressure by both the Germans, and Allies to give up, but ultimately decided to avoid war, which I believe saved thousands of lives and a potentially harsher German occupation in the future.

 

Note that wm's post was from 2016. Haven't seen him post in a while. Corus's opinion on at least some of what wm wrote is probably shared by a fair number of those on the board.

 

Successful surrender was not easy. Which is why so many WW1 images show German PW willingly bringing in British or French casualties.

The Poles seem to have been reasonably sympathetic to Polish PW. After September 1939 Polish citizens were subject to a nationality test. Is this person blue eyed and speaks German? Welcome to the Reich! - and the Wehrmacht. The alternatives are untermensch Pole or Jew... The Polish Army recruited from German PW. There is an anecdote of a German Paratrooper captured in the ruins who is recruited into the ranks he decimated.

 

Ive heard the whole "blue eyes - brown eyes" thing...Google Jane Elliott for a great idea of this form of racism...
Semi serious question is what about green eyes like mine? No one mentions what happened if you didn't have blue eyes but green...

 

Sprichst du gut Deutsch?

 

One of my ancestors or a close relative there to had black eyes.

 

"

With all due respect Mr. Corcus it wasn't about the Munich Agreement. Although it should be mentioned Britain didn't have any agreement with Czechoslovakia, and France had only to "lend aid and assistance" "acting in application of article 16 of the Covenant of the League of Nations" - so actually France didn't have to go to war if she wished. She merely had to help in some manner.

But anyway the fact is that Czechoslovakia existed after Munich just fine, and a half a year later asked Germany for protection. Of course, they were pressured but still, Poland facing similar pressure didn't ask for any protection.

Then the still the same although this time "protected" Czech government still existed and governed till 1945, and even had the support of the population, as Heydrich's assassination demonstrated.
The assassins couldn't find help anywhere, but demonstrations condemning the assassination organized by the government brought hundreds of thousands of citizens.

Even more, the government willingly collaborated with Nazi Germany:
In his new post as minister of education, Moravec instituted the study of German as a compulsory subject in Protectorate schools, explaining it would become a lingua franca of Europe: "[e]very Czech who desires to excel in the future must acquire the German language so that work opportunities in all fields are open to them not only in the Reich but also in Europe and the whole world ... learn German in order that the Czechs’ good reputation can spread way beyond the frontiers of Bohemia and Moravia". [...]
Moravec did not limit himself to educational questions, however. In 1943, he advanced a proposal to deploy the Army of the Protectorate to the Eastern Front in support of German operations. State President Hácha discussed the proposal with SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Hermann Frank who ultimately decided not to forward it to Adolf Hitler.

State President Hácha was the same man who asked Germany for protection four years earlier.

Below one of the mentioned demonstrations, the title is "The Czech nation swears loyalty to the Third Reich", the most interesting part is at the end (Hácha is the only man sitting there):

 

Interesting that Heydrich got the Nick name 'butcher' in Prague.