Children and Weapons, after 1945...

Discussions on the small arms used by the Axis forces.
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Hans1906
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Children and Weapons, after 1945...

#1

Post by Hans1906 » 13 Jul 2020, 15:33

Good afternoon,

my mother, born 1935, and her elder brother, born 1933, after the german surrender in 1945, the children were "playing" with weapons.
The brother just back from the NAPOLA, back in northern germany, crawling around abandoned tanks, was everyday child's play.
My mother even remembered old rations, recovered from the tanks, to have more food in the families.
Hunger was the order of the day, children were roaming around, looking for something...

Most of you here in the forum know the attached photo already.
A very strange photo of children playing with weapons, there were no toys at all.

Please share, whatever you like to share, thank you.


Hans1906
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Kinder Waffen.jpg
The paradise of the successful lends itself perfectly to a hell for the unsuccessful. (Bertold Brecht on Hollywood)

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Hoover
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Re: Children and Weapons, after 1945...

#2

Post by Hoover » 28 Jul 2020, 13:28

Hi,

I don´t have an photos, but my father told me a lot of stories from the months and years after the war.
He has been a refugee from Silesia and his family settled down in Northern Germany between Bremen and Hamburg.
He told me that the old positions ofthe Wehrmacht were a very good playing ground. There was a 8,8cm Flak battery near his town where they turned the gun around as fast as tehy could until it was hard to stay on the seats. They shot a lot of guns they found, and my uncle said that it was more easier to fire a magazine empty and took a new gun than to reload. They hoarded weapons,like StG, rifles, pistols. It was like a competition. But of course there were casualties. A boy died from playing with a hand granade and some were injured by handling with ammonition.

A nice story: My father and his brothers fired some Panzerfausts (my uncle was the oldest and got gun training in the Hitlerjugend). A farmer saw them and called the civilian police, but a patrol of British MP arrived in a Jeep (maybe from Rotenburg/Wümme). The boys were that stupid to get caught and they were got their butts spanked with force. The MP then handed the boys over to the towns police station...were they got their butts spanked again. With more force and under help of a riding crop. After the second punishment the German police handed them over to to my grandfather...who, yes, of course, gave the third.

After that the men of the town collected all weapons and equipment and threw it into the towns pond (Löschteich). The Pond was later filled with sand and a house was built over it in the 90´s. The weapons and ammo are still below the house. The Flak guns were scrapped in the end of the 40´s. Some of the vehicles of the Flak Unit and the Wehrmacht and SS units which fought there were stripped and the remains were also scrapped.
There are a lot of carts of the farmer in that area where the wheels of the guns, halftracks and trucks. And there is the rumor that in a barn a Kübelwagen is hidden but the farmer will not sell the car.

Bye
Frank


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Re: Children and Weapons, after 1945...

#3

Post by poky » 17 Sep 2021, 06:51

my dad got wounded playing with a Phosphorus grenade in late 45, he recovered in a Canadian field hospital. also got his hands on a Harley somehow

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Re: Children and Weapons, after 1945...

#4

Post by Hans1906 » 17 Sep 2021, 11:52

It should be added here that the search at that time was not only of children, everything that could somehow be sold or bartered on the black market. Everything was important, without exception.

"Zigarettenwährung" ("Cigarette currency") https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigarettenwährung

Thank you for your contributions! :milwink:


Hans

P.S. The above photo is just a small example, my mother and her brother were much older at that time, like the two small children playing amidst these weapons. The photo touched me, and I am for sure not alone with this.
The paradise of the successful lends itself perfectly to a hell for the unsuccessful. (Bertold Brecht on Hollywood)

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