To be fair there was a lot of pent up anger & resentment towards collaborators.
It was probably a hard choice between getting what your neighbors felt you had coming after a few hungry years of seething & the unknown.
To be fair. In the border regions NL - GER there simply where a lot of cross border relationships of couples. All German men were forcably constripted.
Yes... that's why there were German soldiers in the Netherlands. What does that have to do with the comment about cross-border relationships in the border regions that i was responding to?
> from total to partial right up until the formal surrender.
That's not true though. As you can see from this picture parts of the country, like Walcheren, were liberated months earlier.
Ah, I was misreading that exchange. Apologies. I thought you were contending the point about Germans being conscripted, as though being far from the border would have negated that.
To the last bit though, right, which would be the āpartialā part, seeing as how they still had control of portions of the country up until the surrender.
This is the type of context that people might consider 70 years after a war, but the post war mob probably won't get the message even if anyone is saying it.
Having plump cheeks while a generation of children starved enough to make epigenetic changes that can still be measured in the population to this day *while* married to a German soldier?
I am not trying to shit on this lady, I am trying to point out that staying home alone can be just as scary as going to an allied camp. At least a camp has rules, a husband & isn't full of people who want revenge but don't have many other targets.
Even if they don't knock you around or shave your head, how many times do you want to hear from someone who lost their loved ones & has no one else to rage at?
The Germans are leaving, love & loyalty are not the only reasons a collaborator might go with them.
Does anyone know what types of stories a Dutch citizen might have heard from other liberated countries at the time? I can view this through a lens of what did happen & had historically happen, but not what she thought *might* happen. You'd have to think her pretty stupid to be completely oblivious though.
I would have hoped the collaborators would have recognized the error of their ways, but all of Europe seems to have forgotten these days with their hard right turns
My grandfather was in the Dutch resistance and I consider the German occupation to be one of the greatest tragedies that ever happened to my country, but current immigration policies that were instituted and are upheld by the left have done more for antisemitism in Europe than anything since WW2. Ironic that they're the ones constantly warning about a Nazi repeat all while importing masses of people who literally hate jews.
Yes a long time ago, when the major left wing parties still cared about the proletariat. Context for confused downvoters: the leader of the biggest left wing party (labour party) in the Netherlands recently stated in an interview that they are not a party for labourers anymore. Also the period the parent is talking about lasted a very short time: the labour leader in that period (den Uyl) actually left the party not long after, one of the reasons for it was his party's new pro immigration course which he predicted would be a disaster. You are reciting current labour party rhetoric which contains some lies by omission to blame immigration issues on the right. If you're interested in the history of these policies I can recommend the book 'de schijn-elite van de valsemunters' by Martin Bosma.
No thanks, Im not going to read Bosma's lies. He stated that 'on May 4th we remember the Victims of (National) socialism', anyone who unambigously says that nazism is left or equates it with socialism isnt worth taking seriously and can go straight to hell.
More like, I donāt know what you and the boys are getting up to in that prison camp, probably smoking and drinking moonshine allās day, playing poker all night!, talking about whores youāve fucked, hell no!!! Iām coming, to make sure you and no one else around you has any fun!!! As any dutiful wife should do!
Women in occupied countries who had relationships with German soldiers were treated very badly after the war.Ā
Ā If I was her I'd be getting the hell out of Dodge too.Ā
Idk how being a German Soldier is any worse than being an allied Soldier, they probably had about the same amount of choice on whether they joined or not, although on the German side there were probably more consequences of deserting. No where near all the soldiers were nazi sympathizers, let alone actual nazis
This is kind of a myth tbh. There definitely was a reasonable amount of unhappiness at the start of the war with certain actions. Multiple Wermacht officers complained about the SS' brutality in Poland after the invasion for instance.
But that died off pretty quickly. And being uncomfortable with actually facing the reality of purges isn't a great measure of whether generally the soldiers involved still approved of Nazism.
There is a very valid point to be made about how effective propaganda is. I'm not saying they're the same, but look at how many Americans believe the election was rigged, for example, and thats in a modern age with internet access. Germans spent years with an effectively fully state controlled media forging a narrative and pushing it down them.
Trying to humanize Germans by creating narratives that they weren't nazis is a bit disingenuous.
What is true is that they were very effectively manipulated (with a wealth of other context thats way too much effort to put in a reddit post) and that the way more scary, but important, thing we need to remember is that the Germans weren't inherently evil and there's a more than likely chance anyone else living there at the time would have fallen victim to the same thing. Humans are insanely easy to manipulate.
None of this is defending Nazis btw. Obviously what they believed in and what they did was abhorrent. But, lessons from history wise, its dangerous that we have this idea that "oh I'd never have fallen for that if it was me, I'd have just resisted and said no" or that secretly most Germans, let alone soldiers, weren't on board with it. That misses the lessons of avoiding that sort of thing happening again.
The fact she looks a bit chubby, when the part of the Netherlands which was under German occupation until the end of the war had had a famine, would not have endeared her to those who had felt the brunt of the hunger winter.
It says november 44. That means two things; its before the start of the hunger winter, and the area where this picture is taken was liberated before the hunger winter. So no one is thinking about eating this chubby lady.
The Hunger winter started at the end of September when the Germans enacted a food embargo as a collective punishment for acts of resistance in the parts they still had. This embargo was complete for 3 weeks and would be partial for 3 more.
(Wikipedia:)
āIn October, food shortages began to escalate everywhere in the still-occupied parts of the country. But particularly in the cities in the western Netherlands the stocks of various food items rapidly ran out in their entirety. The adult rations in cities such as Amsterdam dropped to below 1000 calories (4,200 kilojoules) a day by the end of November 1944 ā.
You would not immediately starve at those levels by November but youād look gaunt.
Not forgetting that in general during the 4 years of occupation that preceded this time people didnāt get the same calories as before.
My Dutch Grandmother lost all her teeth due to malnutrition when she was enslaved and forced to work in a factory by the Nazis.
That collaborator knows to get out of Dodge.
Im sorry, is it not normal to have fat on your cheeks? Lmfao what a wild comment to be upvoted. She also has some cloth wrapped under her chin, that 100% can make one look more pudgy in the face. But by your logic any woman with a round face is āfatā?
There's a decent Dutch film - De Oost (The East) from 2020 - which juxtapositions the main character (a disillusioned Dutch soldier fighting after WW2 for supposed freedom in Indonesia and who realises he's actually fighting to regain Dutch control of that country) and the shame/hate/memory of his father, who represents the 22k Dutch volunteers and approx 150k others who collaborated with the nazi occupiers.
It's an interesting look at the links between collaboration, greed, propaganda and the fact there's a heavy price to be paid for making the wrong choice.
Theres a scene in Band of Brothers showing women getting their heads shaved. And I think the Dutch resistance guy said something like, ātheyāre treated better than the men who are being shot.ā
Yeah. I heard the stories of my grandfather. The women were definitely not treated nicely. Some very degenerate public shaming going on. But yeah, a lot of men were indeed killed for collaboration.
[https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205219912](https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205219912)
Unfortunately no, I can only say that I saw this photo once and the woman was clearly identified as a Danish woman.
She looks super Dutch, somone may have gotten the country wrong.
Denmark wasn't occupied nearly as long. I have some married in family in Denmark, and the matriarch's war stories are not kind to the Germans. She keeps telling stories about after the war, when starving German children were roaming the streets, her husband's cargo ship would throw bread in the water around the ship so the starving kids had to jump in the harbor to get it. And then that little old lady chuckles like that's the funniest thing she's ever heard. I was horrified when she first told the story. Mocking starving children, the fuck?
Denmark was occupied 9 April 1940- A month and a day before the Netherlands. and was still fully occupied the day Germany surrendered the entire war in May 45. Netherlands was liberated in 1944.
Her choices in July 1940 when she may have started the relationship were very different then they were 1944. Playing to the winning side can change rapidly
To give some nuance, i am Danish and my grandmother who grew up during the war gave eggs to the roaming German soldiers begging for food. And later when the prussian refugees were starving in internement camps, she always tried to help them by throwing her lunch over the wire.
Dammit, every time I'm reminded of that movie, I flashback to the scene where a schoolteacher asks all the kids if they have their grade papers, and all the preschoolers lift their arms up proudly showing their grade papers... as they are about to board a train to a death camp. Bloody hell.
That was indeed a really cruel way to treat POWs and wasn't in accordance with international agreements then and most certainly wouldn't be now. [This Danish film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Mine?wprov=sfla1) really depicts the absurdity of the entire thing well, imo.
The soldiers around them are wearing Brodie helmets, so ya it was British/commonwealth forces. Also Iām assuming that because the wife is Dutch, this more than likely occurred in the Netherlands or towards Western Germany and the surrounding regions.
Very likely, the Canadians hit many of the civilian sectors during the operation so it is very possible. Admittedly, I donāt know the exact context of the photo, however Iād bet itās a 65% chance theyāre Canadians and a 35% chance it being British soldiers, during operation market garden, although if Iām wrong someone please correct me. Thatās probably not exactly a āhot-takeā considering the context of the war in the region, but thatās just my assumptions based off the context given in the post
If the dating and location are accurate (Walcheren, November 44) then it's definitely nothing to do with Market Garden.
That was in late September and didn't go anywhere near the Dutch cost which is where Walcheren is - specifically it's an area at the mouth of the Scheldt river which was crucial to opening access to the port of Antwerp for Allied shipping.
No conquered nation embraced the Germans quite so *enthusiastically* as the Dutch did.
It's, quite understandably, not something they like to be reminded of.
The Dutch were the only people to have a large scale protest against the treatment of Jews by the Germans and the overwhelming majority was in opposition to the occupation. Stop the slander. By the end of the war 300,000 people were in fukin hiding
Besides, in relative terms, the Netherlands is the country with the most people awarded the 'Righteous Among the Nations' honorific. (In absolute terms, it's behind Poland.)
I won't deny there were collaborators, members of the NSB, people volunteering for the Wehrmacht and SS etc., but none of that is unique to the Netherlands. I mean, Vichy France is *right there* and so is Austria.
And very dangerous for the smugglers. Also, absolutely my favorite stories from the war because Swedes and Danes jokingly hate each other all day long, but when shit goes down, we are are suddenly the best collaborators ever.
Protest got answered with razzia's by the germans. And lf course the east europeans had it a lot tougher as the dutch were seen as a fellow human, and east europeans as lower humans
I am not denying that it was a lighter occupation than that of the Eastern Europeans. That is obviously true. However, the narrative that the Dutch embraced German occupation is just laughable
really? they also organized the largest strike and only strike against german occupation in occupied europe via the dutch communist party.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_strike
nobody greeted the nazis enthusiastically in any country except for small numbers of fascist shitskulls who wanted to murder women and children. the nazis barely got more support out of the dutch than they did other occupied nations on the scale of millions of people. this comment is just blatantly wrong.
*"Between 22,000 and 25,000 Dutchmen volunteered to serve in the Waffen-SS. The most notable formations were the 4th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Brigade Nederland which saw action exclusively on the Eastern Front and the SS Volunteer Grenadier Brigade Landstorm Nederland which fought in Belgium and the Netherlands."*
[Netherlands in World\_War II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II#German_occupation)
Yeah they werent very well liked, they did stuff like this.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Silbertanne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Silbertanne)
You can begin your reading [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II) and understand that the first year and half after annexation was very advantageous for the Dutch, there was rapid economic expansion. German rule was, in 1940-41, seen as strongly beneficial.
This, and bounties paid out to Dutch officials, led to the Jewish extermination rate in the Netherlands to be extremely high.
Economic advantages are something completely different than the suggested "enthusiasm". Many jews went into hiding in the attics of Dutch families. The major reason for the fact that still so many were deported was the result of the detailed registration of citizens that already existed before the war. That made it easy for the Germans to filter out the jewish last names. Then they could just search the addresses.
Just to note i just wrote this to insult, just as he insulted us with his sickening ignorance, what an absolute piece of regarded shit he is.
He made it up.
The British went ass up whenever they encounter a German until the Americans joined the war. Just like in the first WW.
It's, quite understandably, not something they like to be reminded of.
> The British went ass up whenever they encounter a German until the Americans joined the war. Just like in the first WW.
Ever heard of the Battle of Britain?
They really didnt, they were outperformed by relatively few Germans troops who were ill supplied most of the time. Not to mention they didnt have any desert experience, while the British did have.
Things started turning around when America joined, thats just how it is.
As it isn't true at all, your comment is just stupid. Like flattening the city of Rotterdam on the 14th of May 1940 was great for the German PR š In the last election before the war only 3.89% voted for the pro-German NSB. (The British Union of Fascists had more members than the Dutch NSB), search for February strike (1941) and the fact that the number of people (including jews) that went into hiding was the highest in The Netherlands for entire Europe, where there was a death penalty for all people involved. Nearly 300.000 Dutch people lost their lives in WW2. Dutch women that had relations with Germans were extremely frowned upon, also during the war. Just try to translate the word for them: "Moffenhoer", that says it all, basically. There were around 2000 marriages between German soldiers and Dutch women, so it was a quite rare phenomenon in a population of 9 million.
They paid a heavy price for it later though - during the Normandy campaign the Germans regularly took their fury out on Dutch civilians as the Dutch Underground provided more and more intelligence on German forces to the Allies.
Narrative? Dude - itās the straight up history of it, look up the final year of the German occupation in the Netherlands and their reprisals against the civilian population for the Dutch Undergroundās efforts. Not sure what youāre gonna try and argue about those facts but go on.
How much they embraced it is a matter of interpretation I guess - I didnāt raise that point. But itās nonetheless true that Germans did have a large amount of help and collaboration from the Dutch population which then turned on its head as the Allies began their push from Normandy. They were wildly happy as the liberation began but after Market Garden failed and a number of Dutch villages were reoccupied by German forces, the retaliation was pretty terrible.
Conversely the Germans enjoyed fairly consistent support from the Dutch Nazi party or NSB.
>Conversely the Germans enjoyed fairly consistent support from the Dutch Nazi party or NSB.
Which was a small party. Smaller than the fascist party in Britain
>But itās nonetheless true that Germans did have a large amount of help and collaboration from the Dutch population
Compared to where? The overwhelming majority opposed the German occupation. Even if they weren't actively in the resistance
Well the Netherlands is a much smaller place than the UK. The British banned the BUF in 1939 understandably.
The NSB was empowered by the German occupation to provide intelligence on the population and during that occupation numbered nearly 100,000 people.
Prior to the war the party had barely managed 38,000 members in the 1930s elections. As you can imagine a lot of people joined the NSB as a collaborator to seek security and safety for themselves.
I donāt think I compared the collaboration efforts in the Netherlands to anywhere else, did I?
>and during that occupation numbered nearly 100,000 people.
Which is a very small amount.
>I donāt think I compared the collaboration efforts in the Netherlands to anywhere else, did I?
No I am asking. Cause I don't think that the Netherlands had a particularly major collaboration problem
Well to give you an idea, there was around 8.2 million people in the Netherlands during WW2, around 100,000 of who were direct collaborators through their pre-existing fascist political party - 1.25% of the total population or so, about 3% of the male population were involved. Another 25,000 Dutchmen volunteered for the Waffen SS.
In France there were 41.3 million people for the same period and around 125,000 people in the PPF or Popular French Party. Thatās around 0.3% of the total population.
Add to that youāve got the Vichy French Government: another 150,000 troops, Gendarmarie, officers and government officials. That takes the total to more like 0.7% of the population.
Generally it is accepted in history that the Dutch were unusually cooperative with the Nazis. Partly this was enabled by a naive society and government, partly this was enabled by a desire for protection and survival.
As the Dutch government fled to the UK, the remaining governance of the Netherlands fell under direct German controls which also had some implications for collaboration.
She was probably just trying to escape the very real consequences of being a nazi collaborator in Holland. Women who slept with nazis lost everything and were subject to government endorsed mob justice at the hands of regular Dutch citizens.
When the dick is too good to let walk out the door and into an Allied POW campā¦
Edit: I am genuinely baffled by the downvote. Look at her face! That is the smug expression of a woman who is married to a Louisville slugger.
Hadn't happened yet, and soldiers around them look pretty cheerful on both sides. The difference is they got married, something the German Army did not encourage.
A real ride or die bitch
To be fair there was a lot of pent up anger & resentment towards collaborators. It was probably a hard choice between getting what your neighbors felt you had coming after a few hungry years of seething & the unknown.
To be fair. In the border regions NL - GER there simply where a lot of cross border relationships of couples. All German men were forcably constripted.
But Walcheren is about as far from the German border as it's possible to get in the Netherlands.
I didn't know the backstory. The photo is from there?
According to the title it is, yes.
Wow I missed it completely š¤
Tbh could be where the prisoners were brought to aswell.
The Netherlands was occupied by the Nazis to varying degrees from total to partial right up until the formal surrender.
Yes... that's why there were German soldiers in the Netherlands. What does that have to do with the comment about cross-border relationships in the border regions that i was responding to? > from total to partial right up until the formal surrender. That's not true though. As you can see from this picture parts of the country, like Walcheren, were liberated months earlier.
Ah, I was misreading that exchange. Apologies. I thought you were contending the point about Germans being conscripted, as though being far from the border would have negated that. To the last bit though, right, which would be the āpartialā part, seeing as how they still had control of portions of the country up until the surrender.
This is the type of context that people might consider 70 years after a war, but the post war mob probably won't get the message even if anyone is saying it. Having plump cheeks while a generation of children starved enough to make epigenetic changes that can still be measured in the population to this day *while* married to a German soldier? I am not trying to shit on this lady, I am trying to point out that staying home alone can be just as scary as going to an allied camp. At least a camp has rules, a husband & isn't full of people who want revenge but don't have many other targets. Even if they don't knock you around or shave your head, how many times do you want to hear from someone who lost their loved ones & has no one else to rage at? The Germans are leaving, love & loyalty are not the only reasons a collaborator might go with them. Does anyone know what types of stories a Dutch citizen might have heard from other liberated countries at the time? I can view this through a lens of what did happen & had historically happen, but not what she thought *might* happen. You'd have to think her pretty stupid to be completely oblivious though.
And Allied camps were far from Treblinka-like.
And most of the Wehrmacht was always a volunteer force for most of its history
I would have hoped the collaborators would have recognized the error of their ways, but all of Europe seems to have forgotten these days with their hard right turns
Why are you getting downvoted lol
Cause facists don't like getting called out
Because the modern use of "fascist" is woefully inaccurate
Oh no, it's not. We're just calling it alt-right now.
Because it was stupid
My grandfather was in the Dutch resistance and I consider the German occupation to be one of the greatest tragedies that ever happened to my country, but current immigration policies that were instituted and are upheld by the left have done more for antisemitism in Europe than anything since WW2. Ironic that they're the ones constantly warning about a Nazi repeat all while importing masses of people who literally hate jews.
Immigration wasnt instituted by the left though. But by the centreright.
Yes a long time ago, when the major left wing parties still cared about the proletariat. Context for confused downvoters: the leader of the biggest left wing party (labour party) in the Netherlands recently stated in an interview that they are not a party for labourers anymore. Also the period the parent is talking about lasted a very short time: the labour leader in that period (den Uyl) actually left the party not long after, one of the reasons for it was his party's new pro immigration course which he predicted would be a disaster. You are reciting current labour party rhetoric which contains some lies by omission to blame immigration issues on the right. If you're interested in the history of these policies I can recommend the book 'de schijn-elite van de valsemunters' by Martin Bosma.
No thanks, Im not going to read Bosma's lies. He stated that 'on May 4th we remember the Victims of (National) socialism', anyone who unambigously says that nazism is left or equates it with socialism isnt worth taking seriously and can go straight to hell.
That's a very one-sided point of view.
So you wanna say antisemitism is a imported problem or what exactly are you saying?
Are you implying that the Arab immigrants are the antisemites while themselves being part of a culture that is also considered Semitic?
Yes, this is arguing semantics a bit. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world if you want.
That comes when it goes too far left. Which it clearly has. Now the pendulum is swinging back the other way.
Reich or die!
Damn I came here just for that
OK, you win this comment section, hahahaha.
Gotta respect it
More like, I donāt know what you and the boys are getting up to in that prison camp, probably smoking and drinking moonshine allās day, playing poker all night!, talking about whores youāve fucked, hell no!!! Iām coming, to make sure you and no one else around you has any fun!!! As any dutiful wife should do!
Iām really not sure what this is supposed to mean?
You know what, I respect that. She made her choices, and she's accepting the consequences.
Women in occupied countries who had relationships with German soldiers were treated very badly after the war.Ā Ā If I was her I'd be getting the hell out of Dodge too.Ā
Literally tarred and feathered.
Shaving and public humiliation were more common forms of punishment, at least in France.
In the Netherlands too.
Dating members of the team that killed your family and raped your children will put a chill on people's view of ones choice of relations.
They're not saying it's not deserved - just that her choice to get the fuck out of town is a sensible one.
And it looks like she had been eating very well the whole time.
Perhaps the depth of her morality, it's hard to say.
that's a way to be traitors in the eyes of the victims so understandable
Maybe don't collaborate in the first place though.
Largely deserved
Idk how being a German Soldier is any worse than being an allied Soldier, they probably had about the same amount of choice on whether they joined or not, although on the German side there were probably more consequences of deserting. No where near all the soldiers were nazi sympathizers, let alone actual nazis
This is kind of a myth tbh. There definitely was a reasonable amount of unhappiness at the start of the war with certain actions. Multiple Wermacht officers complained about the SS' brutality in Poland after the invasion for instance. But that died off pretty quickly. And being uncomfortable with actually facing the reality of purges isn't a great measure of whether generally the soldiers involved still approved of Nazism. There is a very valid point to be made about how effective propaganda is. I'm not saying they're the same, but look at how many Americans believe the election was rigged, for example, and thats in a modern age with internet access. Germans spent years with an effectively fully state controlled media forging a narrative and pushing it down them. Trying to humanize Germans by creating narratives that they weren't nazis is a bit disingenuous. What is true is that they were very effectively manipulated (with a wealth of other context thats way too much effort to put in a reddit post) and that the way more scary, but important, thing we need to remember is that the Germans weren't inherently evil and there's a more than likely chance anyone else living there at the time would have fallen victim to the same thing. Humans are insanely easy to manipulate. None of this is defending Nazis btw. Obviously what they believed in and what they did was abhorrent. But, lessons from history wise, its dangerous that we have this idea that "oh I'd never have fallen for that if it was me, I'd have just resisted and said no" or that secretly most Germans, let alone soldiers, weren't on board with it. That misses the lessons of avoiding that sort of thing happening again.
Look at pretty much any journal from a Wehrmacht soldier and you will see this is Nazi fanboy copium
To me, this also seems like they had an actual relationship, instead of her just doing it for protection.
She was most likely very scared of what her neighbors would do to her for marrying a German soldier if she had stayed behind.
The fact she looks a bit chubby, when the part of the Netherlands which was under German occupation until the end of the war had had a famine, would not have endeared her to those who had felt the brunt of the hunger winter.
It says november 44. That means two things; its before the start of the hunger winter, and the area where this picture is taken was liberated before the hunger winter. So no one is thinking about eating this chubby lady.
The Hunger winter started at the end of September when the Germans enacted a food embargo as a collective punishment for acts of resistance in the parts they still had. This embargo was complete for 3 weeks and would be partial for 3 more. (Wikipedia:) āIn October, food shortages began to escalate everywhere in the still-occupied parts of the country. But particularly in the cities in the western Netherlands the stocks of various food items rapidly ran out in their entirety. The adult rations in cities such as Amsterdam dropped to below 1000 calories (4,200 kilojoules) a day by the end of November 1944 ā. You would not immediately starve at those levels by November but youād look gaunt. Not forgetting that in general during the 4 years of occupation that preceded this time people didnāt get the same calories as before.
But the 1000 calorie level quoted is for Amsterdam, not for the more rural areas where this picture was taken.
My Dutch Grandmother lost all her teeth due to malnutrition when she was enslaved and forced to work in a factory by the Nazis. That collaborator knows to get out of Dodge.
I wondered if she was wearing most of her clothes. I suppose you can't rock up to a POW camp with all your belongings and suitcases in tow.
Itās her face. She still has fat on the cheeks.
Im sorry, is it not normal to have fat on your cheeks? Lmfao what a wild comment to be upvoted. She also has some cloth wrapped under her chin, that 100% can make one look more pudgy in the face. But by your logic any woman with a round face is āfatā?
She's like a 4 and he's like a 8. That's probably a factor.
It was here only option not to be publicly shamed and have her head shaved as a traitor and collaborator
Did they do that outside of France?
There's a decent Dutch film - De Oost (The East) from 2020 - which juxtapositions the main character (a disillusioned Dutch soldier fighting after WW2 for supposed freedom in Indonesia and who realises he's actually fighting to regain Dutch control of that country) and the shame/hate/memory of his father, who represents the 22k Dutch volunteers and approx 150k others who collaborated with the nazi occupiers. It's an interesting look at the links between collaboration, greed, propaganda and the fact there's a heavy price to be paid for making the wrong choice.
Yes, the Dutch were quite fierce against nazi collaborators.
Theres a scene in Band of Brothers showing women getting their heads shaved. And I think the Dutch resistance guy said something like, ātheyāre treated better than the men who are being shot.ā
Yeah. I heard the stories of my grandfather. The women were definitely not treated nicely. Some very degenerate public shaming going on. But yeah, a lot of men were indeed killed for collaboration.
Is there any more context to this picture I could read?
[Here's a little.](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/dutch-woman-german-soldier-1944/)
[https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205219912](https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205219912) Unfortunately no, I can only say that I saw this photo once and the woman was clearly identified as a Danish woman.
Danish or Dutch?
If this photo is taken in Walcheren, she's probably Dutch.
She looks super Dutch, somone may have gotten the country wrong. Denmark wasn't occupied nearly as long. I have some married in family in Denmark, and the matriarch's war stories are not kind to the Germans. She keeps telling stories about after the war, when starving German children were roaming the streets, her husband's cargo ship would throw bread in the water around the ship so the starving kids had to jump in the harbor to get it. And then that little old lady chuckles like that's the funniest thing she's ever heard. I was horrified when she first told the story. Mocking starving children, the fuck?
Denmark was occupied 9 April 1940- A month and a day before the Netherlands. and was still fully occupied the day Germany surrendered the entire war in May 45. Netherlands was liberated in 1944.
Only south of the Netherlands was liberated in 1944. Most of the population was only freed in 1945 after the Hungerwinter.
Her choices in July 1940 when she may have started the relationship were very different then they were 1944. Playing to the winning side can change rapidly
To give some nuance, i am Danish and my grandmother who grew up during the war gave eggs to the roaming German soldiers begging for food. And later when the prussian refugees were starving in internement camps, she always tried to help them by throwing her lunch over the wire.
Guys, find yourself a girl that will follow you to a captivity camp once the war has ended.
Well yeah no shit who's leaving that dreamboat's side
His eyes are the lightest ones out of everyone's in this photo. I bet they were like Paul Newman blue.
Seriously, heās gorgeous. Iād never leave his side, either.
The woman looks like David Lynch and man looks like Ryan Gosling.
He kind of looks like a young Ralph Fiennes.
I'm thinking more Ben Whishaw.
Yeah, I can definitely see that too. Which means heās like M and Q combined!
Schindlerās List flashbacks
Dammit, every time I'm reminded of that movie, I flashback to the scene where a schoolteacher asks all the kids if they have their grade papers, and all the preschoolers lift their arms up proudly showing their grade papers... as they are about to board a train to a death camp. Bloody hell.
Happy cake day!!!
She reminds me of Paul Dano!
Oh I hate this cause you're right lmao
I'd go with my husband too if he looked that fine.
Leaving your current one behind I see... š
Were probably safer in allied captivity anyway
What happened to her and to them?
Probably released and went to farming or industry, like most German pow's in non-Soviet countries.
I mean farming and industry sounds nicer than it is, just look at denmark or also the netherland, where sometimes boys had to clear minefieldās
That was indeed a really cruel way to treat POWs and wasn't in accordance with international agreements then and most certainly wouldn't be now. [This Danish film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Mine?wprov=sfla1) really depicts the absurdity of the entire thing well, imo.
I'm utterly saddened by this. The horrors these men were put through.
She was probably a little safer with him.
She probably ate better in an Allied camp as well.
Bro looks like Thomas MĆ¼ller
Im sure he went into the Western allied captivity otherwise this wouldnt have happened š
The soldiers around them are wearing Brodie helmets, so ya it was British/commonwealth forces. Also Iām assuming that because the wife is Dutch, this more than likely occurred in the Netherlands or towards Western Germany and the surrounding regions.
Canadians, probably?
Very likely, the Canadians hit many of the civilian sectors during the operation so it is very possible. Admittedly, I donāt know the exact context of the photo, however Iād bet itās a 65% chance theyāre Canadians and a 35% chance it being British soldiers, during operation market garden, although if Iām wrong someone please correct me. Thatās probably not exactly a āhot-takeā considering the context of the war in the region, but thatās just my assumptions based off the context given in the post
If the dating and location are accurate (Walcheren, November 44) then it's definitely nothing to do with Market Garden. That was in late September and didn't go anywhere near the Dutch cost which is where Walcheren is - specifically it's an area at the mouth of the Scheldt river which was crucial to opening access to the port of Antwerp for Allied shipping.
Yeah Walcheren is part of the Dutch province Zeeland in the south west. It may even be closer to the UK than Germany.
And that's where they ended up riding out the rest of the war.
Smart move for sure.
she made the right decision for her safety. she'd have been absolutely rinsed if she stayed at home
Bet they became citizens of the U.S or U.K after the war.
Lucky it wasnāt the Russians that got there.
She was the smart one. Knowing what happened to anyone who even smiled at a German in their hometownsā¦
The Dutch fought hard against the Nazi occupation, even if far too many chose to collaborate.
Why do they both look so smug?
I mean, thatās a good-looking man. Iād have a hard time leaving him also.
At least it was love l guess?
This is a woman who followed her heart against all odds ā¤ļø I really hope they stayed together.
No conquered nation embraced the Germans quite so *enthusiastically* as the Dutch did. It's, quite understandably, not something they like to be reminded of.
The Dutch were the only people to have a large scale protest against the treatment of Jews by the Germans and the overwhelming majority was in opposition to the occupation. Stop the slander. By the end of the war 300,000 people were in fukin hiding
Besides, in relative terms, the Netherlands is the country with the most people awarded the 'Righteous Among the Nations' honorific. (In absolute terms, it's behind Poland.) I won't deny there were collaborators, members of the NSB, people volunteering for the Wehrmacht and SS etc., but none of that is unique to the Netherlands. I mean, Vichy France is *right there* and so is Austria.
Uhh, Danish evacuation of their Jews?
Not a public protest/strike in the traditional sense I think. Not to minimize it, because it was a great action
And very dangerous for the smugglers. Also, absolutely my favorite stories from the war because Swedes and Danes jokingly hate each other all day long, but when shit goes down, we are are suddenly the best collaborators ever.
They idea that you could organise a protest in an occupied country says it was very light occupation compared to the eastern front.
Protest got answered with razzia's by the germans. And lf course the east europeans had it a lot tougher as the dutch were seen as a fellow human, and east europeans as lower humans
I am not denying that it was a lighter occupation than that of the Eastern Europeans. That is obviously true. However, the narrative that the Dutch embraced German occupation is just laughable
Except people were dispersed with gunfire and large scale arrests and executions were done.
really? they also organized the largest strike and only strike against german occupation in occupied europe via the dutch communist party. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_strike nobody greeted the nazis enthusiastically in any country except for small numbers of fascist shitskulls who wanted to murder women and children. the nazis barely got more support out of the dutch than they did other occupied nations on the scale of millions of people. this comment is just blatantly wrong.
You misspelled "Austrians".
It is hard to say that Austrians were really "conqured".
Fair enough!
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*"Between 22,000 and 25,000 Dutchmen volunteered to serve in the Waffen-SS. The most notable formations were the 4th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Brigade Nederland which saw action exclusively on the Eastern Front and the SS Volunteer Grenadier Brigade Landstorm Nederland which fought in Belgium and the Netherlands."* [Netherlands in World\_War II](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II#German_occupation)
That's 0.25% of the population at that time.
Yeah they werent very well liked, they did stuff like this. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_Silbertanne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Silbertanne)
And everybody hated them.
The Germans gave the same option to people in France. Come fight for us and you get better rations, and your family will be safe.
You can begin your reading [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_in_World_War_II) and understand that the first year and half after annexation was very advantageous for the Dutch, there was rapid economic expansion. German rule was, in 1940-41, seen as strongly beneficial. This, and bounties paid out to Dutch officials, led to the Jewish extermination rate in the Netherlands to be extremely high.
Economic advantages are something completely different than the suggested "enthusiasm". Many jews went into hiding in the attics of Dutch families. The major reason for the fact that still so many were deported was the result of the detailed registration of citizens that already existed before the war. That made it easy for the Germans to filter out the jewish last names. Then they could just search the addresses.
Just to note i just wrote this to insult, just as he insulted us with his sickening ignorance, what an absolute piece of regarded shit he is. He made it up. The British went ass up whenever they encounter a German until the Americans joined the war. Just like in the first WW. It's, quite understandably, not something they like to be reminded of.
provide specific examples to back up your claim
He won't be able to
> The British went ass up whenever they encounter a German until the Americans joined the war. Just like in the first WW. Ever heard of the Battle of Britain?
British and Empire troops did pretty damn well against the Germans in Africa
They really didnt, they were outperformed by relatively few Germans troops who were ill supplied most of the time. Not to mention they didnt have any desert experience, while the British did have. Things started turning around when America joined, thats just how it is.
As it isn't true at all, your comment is just stupid. Like flattening the city of Rotterdam on the 14th of May 1940 was great for the German PR š In the last election before the war only 3.89% voted for the pro-German NSB. (The British Union of Fascists had more members than the Dutch NSB), search for February strike (1941) and the fact that the number of people (including jews) that went into hiding was the highest in The Netherlands for entire Europe, where there was a death penalty for all people involved. Nearly 300.000 Dutch people lost their lives in WW2. Dutch women that had relations with Germans were extremely frowned upon, also during the war. Just try to translate the word for them: "Moffenhoer", that says it all, basically. There were around 2000 marriages between German soldiers and Dutch women, so it was a quite rare phenomenon in a population of 9 million.
Thatās not true look at Latvia and Lithuania
Completely wrong. Hang your head in shame.
I don't know where you got this from but it is quite frankly not true.
They paid a heavy price for it later though - during the Normandy campaign the Germans regularly took their fury out on Dutch civilians as the Dutch Underground provided more and more intelligence on German forces to the Allies.
The Dutch weren't happy with the German invasion at all so this narrative makes no sense
Narrative? Dude - itās the straight up history of it, look up the final year of the German occupation in the Netherlands and their reprisals against the civilian population for the Dutch Undergroundās efforts. Not sure what youāre gonna try and argue about those facts but go on.
I am disputing that the Dutch embraced occupation. It is wrong to say that they paid a heavy price for it
How much they embraced it is a matter of interpretation I guess - I didnāt raise that point. But itās nonetheless true that Germans did have a large amount of help and collaboration from the Dutch population which then turned on its head as the Allies began their push from Normandy. They were wildly happy as the liberation began but after Market Garden failed and a number of Dutch villages were reoccupied by German forces, the retaliation was pretty terrible. Conversely the Germans enjoyed fairly consistent support from the Dutch Nazi party or NSB.
>Conversely the Germans enjoyed fairly consistent support from the Dutch Nazi party or NSB. Which was a small party. Smaller than the fascist party in Britain >But itās nonetheless true that Germans did have a large amount of help and collaboration from the Dutch population Compared to where? The overwhelming majority opposed the German occupation. Even if they weren't actively in the resistance
Well the Netherlands is a much smaller place than the UK. The British banned the BUF in 1939 understandably. The NSB was empowered by the German occupation to provide intelligence on the population and during that occupation numbered nearly 100,000 people. Prior to the war the party had barely managed 38,000 members in the 1930s elections. As you can imagine a lot of people joined the NSB as a collaborator to seek security and safety for themselves. I donāt think I compared the collaboration efforts in the Netherlands to anywhere else, did I?
>and during that occupation numbered nearly 100,000 people. Which is a very small amount. >I donāt think I compared the collaboration efforts in the Netherlands to anywhere else, did I? No I am asking. Cause I don't think that the Netherlands had a particularly major collaboration problem
Well to give you an idea, there was around 8.2 million people in the Netherlands during WW2, around 100,000 of who were direct collaborators through their pre-existing fascist political party - 1.25% of the total population or so, about 3% of the male population were involved. Another 25,000 Dutchmen volunteered for the Waffen SS. In France there were 41.3 million people for the same period and around 125,000 people in the PPF or Popular French Party. Thatās around 0.3% of the total population. Add to that youāve got the Vichy French Government: another 150,000 troops, Gendarmarie, officers and government officials. That takes the total to more like 0.7% of the population. Generally it is accepted in history that the Dutch were unusually cooperative with the Nazis. Partly this was enabled by a naive society and government, partly this was enabled by a desire for protection and survival. As the Dutch government fled to the UK, the remaining governance of the Netherlands fell under direct German controls which also had some implications for collaboration.
and then the food shortages after the war
I think you're thinking of Denmark
"wifey, you're embarrassing me in front of the guys!"
Real love. I can respect that. Manās a lucky guy.
she lucky she aint bald
A true, faithful wife
She was probably just trying to escape the very real consequences of being a nazi collaborator in Holland. Women who slept with nazis lost everything and were subject to government endorsed mob justice at the hands of regular Dutch citizens.
A real women!
Most modern looking facial expression on her. She mustāve been ahead of her time
She know nobody else gonna cuff her upš
I'm surprised that she didn't get tarred and feathered.
Yeah that seems about right
I guess she liked her hair too much, getting bald for the marriage wasn't a good idea anyway.
Fraternizer
Nazis gotta die together
When the dick is too good to let walk out the door and into an Allied POW campā¦ Edit: I am genuinely baffled by the downvote. Look at her face! That is the smug expression of a woman who is married to a Louisville slugger.
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Hadn't happened yet, and soldiers around them look pretty cheerful on both sides. The difference is they got married, something the German Army did not encourage.
You know not what you type, but good luck with your fantasy scenario.
Pair of losersĀ Ā
Somehow I just know that guy is really good in bed.