The Savage Peace

It was a very difficult documentary to watch as it reminded me of the horror stories my grandfather, grandmother and their siblings recalled about post World War 2 Europe. The horrors and evils of the Nazi party were rightfully ended, but savage retaliation against ethnic Germans began. While some reviewers on here elude to it being propaganda, the horrific events that happened to family members of mine were well-documented, corroborated by other witnesses, and discussed extensively in medical records. The documentary was well done and I think it reminds us that violence doesn't necessarily end with the war.

Reading between the lines, what I got out of this movie was that the USA, UK and Russia decided to commit "the biggest genocide in history of humanity" as labeled by the creators by expelling the German-speaking population from Eastern European countries and reducing the size of Germany by a third.

The other point I got was that there was a reprisal against the civilian German population that was actively involved in aiding Nazis in terms of committing atrocities.

The so called documentary reached its lowest point when the creators used as a witness a former Nazi youth organization member, still enamored with the Hitler's personality.

The only truthful part of the story was the description of the atrocities committed by the Russian soldiers, but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

We've all heard about the horrors committed by Russian soldiers during and after World War II. The brutal mass rapes, even of Jewish women hiding in Germany. There was no sense of honor in their actions. They acted more like predators than soldiers. And disturbingly, similar behavior is still being reported today in Ukraine.

What truly shocked me in this documentary, though, were the stories that rarely get told. Civilians torturing and killing children like they were nothing more than animals. I expected to hear about things like beatings, public humiliation, or maybe the destruction of ethnic German homes. But the cruelty described here is beyond anything I could have imagined.

The testimonies from survivors are absolutely gut wrenching. Even decades later, the trauma is still raw, like it all happened just yesterday. This isn't an easy documentary to sit through. You need to brace yourself because it's heavy, disturbing, and unforgettable.

The underlying theme throughout this travesty is the over arching sense of entitlement in these peoples voices. "Don't they know I am German?" The same voices that followed German troops into these countries and claimed it as their living space, while the troops herded the former owners off to their deaths.

As it said towards the end of the documentary, all this information is little known outside of Germany. And how apt the expression..History is written by the victor's.. truly is when you see man's inhumanity to man writ large here.

As someone born in post war Britain, it was a total shock to see how savagely rough justice was handed out, without any regard for law or due process.

It was depressing to see how war had reduced humanity to act like this in revenge, making the victorious no better than those they had vanquished. There was no moral high ground in victory here, only a hollowed out empty feeling.