[Franek Grabowski]

I thought that the thread should be forgotten, but as the general subject reappears in various forms, I believe it should be refreshed.
I concur with Chris S and I am terrified. I do not like PC but some thesis presented here are a so called 'nazi revisionist propaganda'. In short it is an old song, they were brave, they were chivalrous, they did not know, they were following orders, they had no mean of protest, etc. All of this could be debunked, given a little bit of good will and research. Mind you that Allied intelligence did a constant monitoring of morale of German society, this including analysis of letters send home by soldiers. This shows perfectly extent of knowledge about crimes, as well as decline of morale in 1943, when Germany started to loose the war. Informations are available either from period publications (like RAF Intel Bulletins) or from archives, I believe TNA should have a good file on it. They leave no shade of doubt, those interested knew perfectly well, what is going around, and the one must have been dumb, not to know that there is something fishy about it.
It is worth to note German behaviour in Poland. The war started here, so theoretically participating soldiers should not be influenced by combat stress and increasing brutality. Despite that, number of crimes committed by German soldiers (and it was mostly Wehrmacht's and Luftwaffe's war) is astonishing. Certainly there were individuals, who opposed it, and did not like it, but they were individuals indeed. En masse it was a machine of death and terror, and while I am not against research of particular men, and even sympathy towards them, I am deeply disgusted by removing their stories from the brute context. It is not only excusing of crimes, or lack of taste, but especially lack of common sense.
While talking individuals, I must stress one particular point. While reading about various criminals and degenerates, both nazi and communistic, it was a strucking thing to find out, they were often so nice and friendly fellas. Read about Mengele, how friendly he was towards children, so they freely called him uncle! I bet, if he survived to this day, you would be claiming he could not have been a nazi, and all of this is just a propaganda.
Finally, I find it deeply offensive the general approach here towards Allied soldiers. Certainly various countries had troubled history in their long term of existence, and certainly some decisions undertaken during the war should be discussed. It is obvious, that some Allied soldiers committed crimes or did other shameful things, sometimes because they were bad people, sometimes because of emotions. Nonetheless such behaviour was minor and never accepted by majority of servicemen.
One old good sample for this.
It happened in 1944 that in the heat of a briefing, one Allied general said something, that could have been an encouragement to strafe civilians. Airmen were so disgusted, that in a short time a statement was issued, that in no way this speech should be interpreted this way. Those interested may find a reproduction of original paper in Spit & Polish book.
I find it especially shameful, that such words happen on a site supposed to be a place for knowledgeable and educated people.