"The behavior of the Russians was strikingly different from the behavior of the Poles and allies" - from the memoirs of German officers
Memoirs and recordings of the German military who fought against the Soviet Union often make it clear how the enemy's attitude towards the Soviet soldier and the Soviet people as a whole changed. If in the first days of the war this attitude was for the most part disdainful, mixed with disgust and a clear overestimation of one's own capabilities, then gradually arrogance was lost.
Back in Brest, when the Nazis faced incredible resistance from the defenders of the Brest Fortress, the first notes and letters appeared home that "the war with the Russians could drag on." When the Nazi invaders suffered their first major defeat - near Moscow - it began to come to the understanding that the propaganda of the Goebbels department, multiplied by its own underestimation of the Red Army, could go sideways.
The "Memories of a Soldier" channel presents excerpts from the memoirs of German officers who fought on the Eastern Front. These materials can be treated in different ways, but the fact remains: they are proof that the psychology of the Nazis in the USSR changed significantly. Those who gave orders to burn villages together with their inhabitants, those for whom the commission of war crimes was the norm, suddenly had a desire to "know the Russian soul." Why all of a sudden?
The answer may be related to the fact that they were simply afraid for themselves, counting on the breadth of that very Russian soul and Russian immense generosity. And indeed, many, being in captivity, were eventually able to return home. Could Soviet people from German captivity be able to return home under the same circumstances? The question is more rhetorical. Especially when you consider how many Soviet prisoners of war could not get out of the Nazi torture chambers.
General G. Blumentritt wrote in his notes:
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