German Newsreel footage from March 1945

[Gotthard Heinrici]

YouTube - 1945 03 22 Breslau Königsberg Stettin Rote Armee T1

Watching those civilians looking at the panzerfaust demonstration you cant help but feel that they had no idea just what was about to happen to their world.

[Erich]

don't be too sure about that. I've interviewed several that lived in and around Königsberg and yes they new as soon as the battle of Ebenrode was concluded and the Soviets were pushed back the handwriting was being written on their "walls". everyone including children were going to need to know how to fire anything in defense of their homes

[Gotthard Heinrici]

Well I know that the Regime made great efforts to highlight the atrocities committed at Nemmersdorf but like in real life its one thing being told, its another thing to experience

[Erich]

well it was more thatn in this town and you know it, propaganda was strong and it kept the German peoples hope alive even though they knew it was over in February of 45 along the retreat across the frozen Baltic and getting shelled or shot up by Soviet a/c in their long drive westward. I have the complete bio of a former Landser and good friend of over 25 years from his service from Poland through Ost Preußia, and I must say it is some of the most gripping accts of the war in the Ost. have the interviews of his brother in the KM land division and my friends wife who ran with her 3 years old east from Insteburg, plus her own younger brother serving in the LW Flak Batterie on 8.8cm's on the Eastern coast line.........and there are others when faced with the terrible dilemna to fight or retreat and then go back to recaptured villages and see the Soviet atrocities to familie and friends. how do you accept all of this knowing full well especially as a soldier that other Kameraden may have done the same to the Russian populace in other parts of the front during the war........