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Praetorium Honoris

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Things Change

(Source)
"Where are they taking them?" Soldat Maxime De Saint-Pierre asked as he watched the Germans separating the colonial troops from the men from cosmopolitan France. 

Caporal Guillaume Micheaux looked for a long moment at De Saint-Pierre, he was a very young soldier from a small village in the Vosges Mountains. He thought for a moment as he too watched the Germans pulling the black and Asian soldiers out of the group.

"Les Boches are probably going to kill them. The Nazis hate anything which is not like them, especially those whose skin is darker than theirs." Guillaume felt sick knowing the fate of the men being selected.

"But why? Why would they do such a thing?" De Saint-Pierre asked plaintively.

Before Guillaume could answer, one of the guards hit De Saint-Pierre in the back with the butt of his rifle, "Halt die Klappe du Schwein!!¹"


Les Boches had loaded them on another train, this one appeared to be heading west, at least it had been pointed west when they had been loaded aboard. Guillaume was so tired and hungry that he was almost beyond caring what les Boches had in mind for him and the thousand other French POWs aboard the train.

What Guillaume couldn't know is that the Germans were ill-prepared to take on so many POWs. During the battle for France and the aftermath, the Germans had taken well over a million and a half French soldiers prisoner. The plan was to hold some in prisoner-of-war camps, the majority would be put to work in the Reich as forced labor.

But France had collapsed far too quickly for the plans to be executed. Many of the trains carrying prisoners were being sent back to France, where the new plan was for the soldiers to be paroled back to their homes. Truth be told, in the Byzantine politics governing the Third Reich, very often local officials acted on their own, in their own interests and not in the interests of Berlin.

Guillaume didn't know it, but he was one of the lucky ones who would be heading home, to be released after swearing an oath of loyalty to the new French government in Vichy.


"Right, you lot, over here, line up!" The British sergeant was barking these orders in English to men who didn't speak the language. Fortunately, he had a translator who would repeat his commands in Polish to the men gathered at the entrance to the encampment where the various escapees and refugees from the battle of France were being held.

Podbielski nodded at his little group to obey the command. Jean-Yves Cahun, not wanting to be separated from his new comrades, followed the others.

As they queued up, Podbielski noticed that another man, a corporal, was counting off groups of ten, each group being directed to different areas outside of the camp. He had to make sure they all stayed together, though there were only six of them, he worried that they might be separated. Especially the Frenchman.

As they moved forward, Podbielski kept an eye on the count. As they drew closer, he could see that the count would split his group in half. So he pulled three men from behind his group and pushed them forward.

One of the men protested, "What the Hell do you think you're doing?"

Before Podbielski could say anything, Klaudiusz Mierzejewski has his knife out and growled, "Just move. If you know what's good for you."

The man blanched then quickly moved up.

"Klaudiusz, you scare me sometimes." Podbielski muttered.

Mierzejewski shrugged, "It worked didn't it?"


"Nächste!²" the middle-aged German sergeant barked at the line of Frenchmen, most of whom were so tired they could barely stand.

Guillaume shuffled forward, though he didn't speak a word of German, he knew enough to just do what all the others had done, take the papers the German shoved at them, sign the top one and give it back, then move on.

The German barked something at him and shoved a bundle of papers into his hand, Guillaume used the pen the German handed him to sign the top sheet, and handed it back. The German snatched the paper from Guillaume's hand then barked "Nächste!"

As Guillaume moved over to where the other men had received their papers, there were Germans pointing down the road and gesturing for the men to move along. A number of men, some looking very bewildered, were already walking down the road. They kept looking back, suspecting that les Boches were up to no good.

For once, they were not.

Guillaume stole a glance at the papers the German had given him, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the papers were in French and in German. As he studied them, he realized that these were travel papers, authorizing, in fact requiring, that he proceed to his home village and immediately report to the German authorities in that area.

There was no mention of authorization for transport, nor had anyone received any funds to pay for travel. Most of the men, upon capture, had been stripped of anything valuable they were carrying, including money.

Guillaume knew that he had a long walk ahead of him, but he was in France and not Germany. So there was hope. But hope of what, he wasn't sure.


"Where are we going sierżancie'?" Jean-Yves asked Podbielski.

"Scotland from what I understand. The English are forming a new Polish Army there. Where we go from there is a mystery. Hopefully wherever Germans are being killed." Podbielski answered as he watched the landscape slide past the train. He wondered if it ever stopped raining in this country.

The other men were all sleeping, content to let the British take care of them for now. They had been given new uniforms, they now looked like British soldiers, and, most importantly, they had been fed. So the men were content, for the moment.

Podbielski worried that the Brits would make the men go through a period of training with lots of square bashing and mindless drill. These men were already soldiers, they needed to exercise in the field in their new units, to get used to each other. God forbid that the Brits made them march and go through close order drill.

Podbielski was sure that he spoke for all of the men on this train, all they really wanted to do was kill Niemcy

The sooner, the better.




¹ Shut your mouth, you pig!!" (German)
² Next! (German)

36 comments:

  1. Depending where Podbielski is from, the rain shouldn't surprise him. Here around Bielsko-Biala, I swear it rains over half the time.
    Dennis in Poland.

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    1. Felt like that where I lived in Germany as well. I thought London had better weather, at least they did the week I was there!

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  2. Don't know anything about how the Polish and Free French units were formed up in England but good to see the exiles make it to old Blighty. France gets to experience the "efficiency" of German bureaucracy now.

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    1. Not to mention the double-whammy of French bureaucracy.

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  3. The Germans did not treat French Colonial troops well.

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  4. I had not know what was done with the French POWs, thanks.

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    1. Many weren't freed until Germany was defeated.

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    2. But we also pushed the Germans out of France so were some being freed as we moved through?

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    3. Those who were held as POWs were in Germany itself, usually in the East.

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  5. I learn things every day that I could have learned decades ago. A form of "proof of living well", perhaps. Thank you; what happened then never crossed my mind.

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    1. History is such a vast topic that I can now understand why it seems to be "not taught" or "not taught well" in American schools. I have been lucky to have had some very good history teachers and one or two that were abysmal.

      If history is taught well, and made interesting by the teacher, that sparks folks to go on and learn more on their own. We can't expect teachers to show us everything. But if they can make the topic interesting, then learning and further exploration will follow.

      Discipline in the classroom is also a must, now THAT is something this country needs to work on in so many areas - at home, at work, in society in general. Ill-disciplined louts aren't good for much, the big question is, of course, how did they get that way?

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    2. I think a goodly part of teaching history well is telling stories - such as you are doing - about the People who lived ( and died) through it. I've always maintained that history is " his story". You need to know enough of the big stuff for context, but it's the human stories that make it interesting.
      Keep up the good work, Sarge.
      Boat Guy

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    3. "To us and those like us..."
      BG

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    4. Another key element to a passion for history and understanding it is familiarity with tangible artifacts of the events. Collectors are not just pack rats hoarding "stuff" but historians caring for the relics which exemplify and explain the past. At least that is the excuse I use, and I genuinely enjoy researching and writing about the military history stuff I collect.
      John Blackshoe

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    5. I enjoy historical artifacts, particularly uniform items and firearms. It gives me a better "feel" for those historical periods.

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    6. When I was in school, many of my male teachers were WWII vets. My 6th grade teacher was in a weather squadron in the Army Air Corps. When it came to Science Class we studied Weather. There wasn't a kid in that class who couldn't read the old style weather maps. One of my High School History teachers was on the USS Essex during the war.

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    7. Ah, now that would have been good. My junior high principal flew B-24s during the war. Great guy, very understanding. A number of guys I worked with in civvy street before I went into the USAF were WWII vets. At least one Navy man (PT Boats in the Pacific), a GI who fought on the 'Canal, a B-17 waist gunner, and an infantryman who served in the ETO. Of course, I hade two uncles and a great-uncle who were WWII vets.

      They truly were a magnificent generation.

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  6. That is something I had never thought about Sarge - the fact that whatever the "plans" were for the French POWs, they rapidly got overwhelmed by events. Like Rob, thanks for the insight.

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    1. Likewise the Imperial Japanese army was completely unprepared to deal with tens of thousands of sick, starving and exhausted POW's. They of course took a page from the Nazi treatment of "undesirables".
      BG

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    2. The Japanese have a long tradition of war and dealing with the losers, they didn't need any help.

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    3. BG - The Imperial Army of WWII practiced a bastardized version of bushido. To accept defeat was considered unacceptable. Of course, when they defeated other armies, those who survived were not considered to have any honor at all. It's something that Toirdhealbheach Beucail might be able to address in depth, he has far more knowledge of Japanese culture than I do. But like Rob said, they needed no inspiration from the Nazis. The Rape of Nanking occurred well-before knowledge of Nazi atrocities became widespread (1937).

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    4. Ah, the East Asian mindset. Not just the Japanese, but pretty much (a generalization, but...) all of the cultures from that area thought quite differently than us Westerners about prisoners and such. Things changed, somewhat (well, at least in Japan) after WWII. But in reality, the treatment of prisoners by Red China or West Taiwan and, at the time, North Korea and North Vietnam were and are still rather East Asian.

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    5. It's almost as if they place no value on human life.

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  7. I like TB’s phrase turn of plans we’re “overwhelmed by events”. So for some or most French soldiers being captured by the Germans was a bit of reprieve. It will be interesting to see where that muse takes those who are released back to the population. The French resistance?

    Franknbean

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    1. Some wanted to just get back to their lives, many discovered that that wasn't really an option.

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    2. That seems to be the discovery that's coming for many. YOU might want to get on with your life, but others will compel you to submit or fight. Simple choice.
      Boat Guy

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  8. Mierzejewski shrugged, "It worked didn't it?"

    The late Senator Harry Reid:would approve.
    John Blackshoe

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    1. Heh.

      I guess unprincipled bastards think alike.

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  9. Interestingly enough, Japanese treated 1905 war with Russia prisoners very well. It seems it was somewhere between wars that attitudes changed much, probably due to colonial war on China, Asians could be as racist towards each other as Europeans.

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