Genuine courage

[Walsingham]

It is very common to scoff at all forms of courage and undermine heros. It is therefore a pleasure to present this account, taken from the Telegraph, of an undeniable hero.

 

 

Once the First World War broke out, Captain Chavasse served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in France and Belgium, where he was attached to the 10th King's (Liverpool Scottish) Regiment.

 

Captain Chavasse had already been awarded the Military Cross by August 1916 when, while he was serving in Guillemont, France, a unit of 600 men sustained 189 casualties. The young officer tended to wounded servicemen all day and night under heavy fire. He was awarded the VC for "conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty" after saving the lives of an estimated 20 seriously-injured men.

 

Almost a year later, Captain Chavasse was involved in the third Battle of Ypres, in which Allied forces recaptured the Passchendaele ridge, outside the Belgian town, over several months at a cost of almost half a million lives.

 

On the evening of July 31, 1917, Captain Chavasse received a skull wound. He had his injury bandaged but he refused to be evacuated. Instead, time and again and in appalling weather, he went into no-man's-land to search for and attend the wounded.

 

With virtually no food, in great pain and desperately weary, he again saved several lives. In the early hours of August 2, he was finally taking a rest at his aid post when it was struck by a shell. With everyone at the post killed or wounded, Captain Chavasse, who had at least six separate injuries, crawled for half a mile to get medical help for his comrades.

 

By now his swollen face made him unrecognisable and he was operated on for a serious abdomen injury. Yet he found the strength to dictate a final letter to his fianc

[Lare Kikkeli]

can a nazi germany soldier be a hero?

Edited November 22, 2009 by Lare Kikkeli

[Purkake]

Never!

[Hell Kitty]

I've always had a problem with people being labelled heroes based on their chosen profession, be it soldier or cop of firefighter. Ignoring the actions of an individual and instead focusing on the idea of what being in that job means.

 

Referring to all those in a particular group as heroes by default diminishes the actual heroic acts of specific individuals. Like Captain Chavasse, who is pretty ****in' awesome.

[Gorgon]

What about whatshisface the death camp commandant who saved as many Jews as he could for as long as he was able.

[Walsingham]

can a nazi germany soldier be a hero?

 

I'd say so. I'm talking a guy who is heroic in some way, not just some child-murderer. I've been to the German war cemetery at Cassino, and it was no less a place of reverence. Obviously you also feel sorry for the stupid bastards, but they still suffered and fought hard. In fact it just made me more sad.

[Hurlshort]

I think you do have a separation between the Wehrmacht and the SS in WW2, and in the way people look back on them.

[Wrath of Dagon]

What about whatshisface the death camp commandant who saved as many Jews as he could for as long as he was able.

Are you on drugs?

I think you do have a separation between the Wehrmacht and the SS in WW2, and in the way people look back on them.

Not really, they both fought for the nazis, the SS was just a bit more enthusiastic.

[Purkake]

So if a serial killer kills 10 people, kicks puppies etc and later saves a 1000 people from certain death, is he a hero?

[Deadly_Nightshade]

can a nazi germany soldier be a hero?

 

Yes.

[I want teh kotor 3]

can a nazi germany soldier be a hero?

 

 

Hell no.

 

Disclaimer: I'm Jewish.

[Purkake]

This will go places.

 

[Deadly_Nightshade]

can a nazi germany soldier be a hero?

Hell no.

 

Why not?

[I want teh kotor 3]

can a nazi germany soldier be a hero?

Hell no.

 

Why not?

 

I'm Jewish.

 

Nazi ****s killed my great-grandparents, four of my grand-uncles, two of my great-aunts, did some **** to my grandfather that led to him being, among other things, thoroughly mentally unbalanced, and stole a (not-so-)small fortune. That's why.

 

EDIT: @Purkake:

Edited November 23, 2009 by I want teh kotor 3

[Deadly_Nightshade]

And so I guess you paint all members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party with the same brush. Nope, I guess there could not be a person who was required to be a member but did not think much of it - and I guess there is no chance that there might have been official members who worked against Hitler. Oh wait... There were. Here's one such case. And, just for you, here's a Jewish site that supports that.

[Hurlshort]

I think you do have a separation between the Wehrmacht and the SS in WW2, and in the way people look back on them.

Not really, they both fought for the nazis, the SS was just a bit more enthusiastic.

 

Not really, the vast majority of soldiers in the Wehrmacht were fighting for their country, not a political party. Honestly most historians target the SS as the main perpetrators of war crimes, so I'm not sure where you are going to go with this argument.

[Aram]

Honestly, I have more respect for a man who looks out for himself but decides after careful consideration that he should sacrifice something rightly his own for something more important than I do for the guy in the original post, who frankly sounds blindly deluded into thinking he owed so much to something he didn't at all. If he'd been born a German, he'd have done all the same things for the opposite side and had the same dying words. His selflessness is commendable, and would be no matter which side he'd been on, but that's not a glorious life--that's not something to strive to become.

[Walsingham]

Honestly, I have more respect for a man who looks out for himself but decides after careful consideration that he should sacrifice something rightly his own for something more important than I do for the guy in the original post, who frankly sounds blindly deluded into thinking he owed so much to something he didn't at all. If he'd been born a German, he'd have done all the same things for the opposite side and had the same dying words. His selflessness is commendable, and would be no matter which side he'd been on, but that's not a glorious life--that's not something to strive to become.

 

You know I don't have any personal beef with you Aram, but you're talking like an arse. What on earth makes you think he didn't value his own life? Duty being an obligation doesn't take that away.

[HoonDing]

can a nazi germany soldier be a hero?

Kurt Meyer

[Theseus]

can a nazi germany soldier be a hero?

There is a difference of a person have duty and a person have a duty of conscious where he knows what he is doing. That if the Nazi's won he might of been considered a hero, and he might still even thought it was consciously the right thing to do. Even Heidegger was a Nazi.

[213374U]

Disclaimer: I'm Jewish.

ROFLASDASFASDKHJ

 

And I'm a scientologist. Who asked you and, more pertinently, who the **** cares?

 

In all seriousness though, I suppose we're required to take a Palestinian's opinion at face value on whether an IDF member can be a hero as well, then, if your opinion as a Jew is somehow especially relevant.

 

 

Here's one such case.

To be fair to the good Generalfeldmarschall, he wasn't one of the most ardent detractors of the Nazis within the military establishment - only after the tide turned did many of them begin to think that perhaps uncle Adolf and his gang of cranks wasn't the best for Germany. That's not to say there weren't any such cases, but people like von Hammerstein-Equord, von Fritsch, von Witzleben or von Leeb are much better examples. And even so, the reasons needn't be that they all thought the Nazis were "evil". Some resented a Bavarian corporal's growing influence and meddling in what was considered an elite circle, heir of the proud military traditions of Prussia. Some feared the de facto parallel, Nazi-fostered, army in the form of the SA and later SS. Some thought that going to war with the Allies and the Soviet Union was suicide, and some others truly despised the way the Nazis had done away with civil liberties and freedom in Germany.

 

At any rate, these people were professional soldiers in the purest sense, and actively moving against the regime would have been treacherous and demeaning in their eyes. Fedor von Bock exemplifies this thinking: a military man through and through, who remained at his post despite his personal feelings towards the Nazis.

 

As for Wehrmacht members "fighting for the Nazis", this is simply ridiculous. Germany had, since 1935, re-instituted conscription. The Waffen-SS are a different story though. But even in the Waffen-SS there were many non-volunteers and some others that weren't so much fighting "for the Nazis", as they were against communism. See 1, 2.

Edited November 23, 2009 by 213374U

[Killian Kalthorne]

Courage is being scared as **** of the possible consequences and still doing the right thing.

[Gorgon]

I think it was this fellow, or it was a Wehrmacht officer, anyway the story seems to be prevalent. Made into a movie which I cant remember the name of, the Jews stuck his name on a memorial.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Plagge

[Gorgon]

I don't know if Rommel was a hero, I mean he was on the wrong side, more like 'not completely evil'. Even his enemies spoke for his treatment of prisoners of war and the professionalism of all the men under his command in the Africa campaign.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Gorgon

[Lare Kikkeli]

I don't know if Rommel was a hero, I mean he was on the wrong side, more like 'not completely evil'. Even his enemies spoke for his treatment of prisoners of war and the professionalism of all the men under his command in the Africa campaign.

 

Actually he was on our side since Finland was allied with Germany during WW2.

Edited November 23, 2009 by Lare Kikkeli