The Savage Peace

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.

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.

This documentary mainly concentrates on the reprisals of the Czechs against its German-speaking population following the end of WWII. The creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918/1919 from the Australia-Hungarian Empire was a country of Bohemians, Moravians, Slovaks, Hungarians, and Germans. Hitler used the issue of Sudetenland Germans to force the country to cede portions of the country to Germany in 1938, as France and Great Britain reneged on their commitment to protect Czechoslovakia's sovereignty. Six months later, the Germans invaded the country and created a protectorate, brutalizing its slavonic-speaking population. In 1945, after 7 years of abuse and humiliation, the revenge against Nazis and all Germans was swift, violent, and equally deadly. The film also refers to the Polish revenge of its German-speaking population as well as the Russian Army's brutality against German civilians, especially women.

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.

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.