• Blaine@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    Exactly. One in every six Wehrmacht troops fighting on D-Day was a non-German, many of which were prisoners who’d been forced to fight for the Nazis. You might actually be pissing on the grave of a Korean POW who’d been shipped to the German frontlines by their Japanese captors.

    Source: https://militaryhistorynow.com/2014/06/02/germanys-foreign-volunteers-helped-man-the-atlantic-wall/

    “In one more memorable encounter, members of the American 101st Airborne stumbled upon a group of surrendering Asiatic troops in German uniforms. Despite repeated attempts, Allied interrogators were unable to communicate with their curious Wehrmacht prisoners. Only later was it discovered that the soldiers originally hailed from Korea and had absolutely no interest in fighting for the Third Reich. How they ended up in German uniform is one of the Second World War’s most outlandish sagas.”