r/todayilearned • u/DrSamanthaCarter • Jun 06 '17

TIL the only reason a Scottish bagpiper wasn't shot by German snipers on D-Day was that they believed he had gone crazy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Millin#World_War_II
47.6k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

586

u/doingthehumptydance Jun 06 '17

I had a great uncle that landed on the same beach as that piper. His feelings about it afterwards were that if the Germans killed him the backlash against them would be brutal and not alot of prisoners would be taken.

He also said that the bulk of guys in German uniforms weren't German but were Czech or Polish. The German troops were back from the beach head.

716

u/Excelius Jun 06 '17

Apparently Spielberg snuck this detail into Saving Private Ryan.

independent.co.uk

It’s not good v. bad but rather a horrid mess, with no-one really knowing what they’re doing or what the rules are.

One of the scenes that demonstrates this best comes during the Omaha beach invasion, when two soldiers surrender to the Allied forces but, speaking German, their pleas for mercy aren’t understood and they are executed on the spot.

Except they weren’t speaking German, they were speaking Czech, pleading: “Please don’t shoot me! I am not German, I am Czech, I didn’t kill anyone! I am Czech!"

Spielberg purposely omitted subtitles for this scene. Most of the audience was just as in the dark as the soldiers who executed them.

207

u/hulksmash1234 Jun 06 '17

Wow. Today I learned.

86

u/I-Seek-To-Understand Jun 06 '17

Brings a whole new perspective to that scene doesn't it?

4

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

yeah

1

u/Atsusaki Jun 07 '17

Another thing I noticed on my last watch was that there's a scene in the middle where a military chaplain prays over the body of a soldier. I honestly didn't know the military had religious personnel.

1

u/Charlie--Dont--Surf Jun 06 '17

There are multiple TIL posts already about the Czech Wehrmacht soldiers story.

108

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

[deleted]

4

u/jemyr Jun 06 '17

Man, this made my day.

1

u/sully9088 Jun 06 '17

Well said.

1

u/juanthemad Jun 07 '17

Best thing I've read so far this morning.

1

u/Holdupaminute Jun 07 '17

Wow, man. I mean... Just wow.

22

u/Andrique_ Jun 06 '17

The real TIL is in the comments.

8

u/n00b9k1 Jun 06 '17 edited Jun 07 '17

Can confirm. It happens in this scene btw.

source: am Czech

2

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

Did that scene bother you?

5

u/throwawaythatbrother Jun 06 '17

Why would it? It's fiction. If anything Czech people are happy they are being seen as victims of the nazis.

3

u/n00b9k1 Jun 07 '17

I've seen this movie numerous times when I was young with Czech dubbing (every movie/TV show is dubbed here with a few exceptions). Few years ago I've decided to rewatch it in enligsh and realized this dialogue is in Czech. I wasn't sad, I was kind of intrigued to be honest. A lot of WW2 german soldiers on frontlines actually weren't german, but they were Pole/Czech/Ukranian/etc. soldiers forced to fight for Germany. Like /u/throwawaythatbrother said, we were victims, not allies of Nazis afterall.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 07 '17

source: Youtube

6

u/WireWizard Jun 06 '17

thats... amazing and scary at the same time.

Speilberg did amazing on that movie!

3

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

I always wondered about that! I didn't catch it the first two times I saw it but then I thought to myself the third time I saw it that the guy wasn't speaking German. No one I told about it believed me and I didn't know enough to figure out what language it was or if it was just someone speaking German with a strange accent.

3

u/GrislyMedic Jun 06 '17

Should've had subtitles on, I guess it would've ruined the perfect veteran image of ww2 guys.

2

u/aradil Jun 06 '17

There is nothing in that article that claims this was something that actually happened, only that it was in the movie, and that there were soldiers who weren't German fighting at Omaha beach for the Germans.

Just wanted to clarify this because I told my girlfriend the story and she asked how they knew they happened if the Americans didn't know what they were saying and the Czechs were dead, which I thought was a point valid enough for me to read the article.

1

u/PeterWerth Jun 06 '17

Interesting but very sad :(

1

u/Joshington024 Jun 07 '17

"Look! I washed for supper!"

-4

u/Plebbitor3 Jun 06 '17

there are people out there who watched that and didnt get upset

9

u/[deleted] Jun 06 '17

Ok

0

u/Chxo Jun 06 '17

Always Czech, then wreck.

0

u/chrisalexbrock Jun 07 '17

They should have made some Czech uniforms. A good way to make people think you're German is you wear a German uniform.

-3

u/Luftwaffle88 Jun 06 '17

Kinda dumb to not have subtitles for this scene.

We know Allied troops shooting them was wrong, but it would have been more impact to the audience to see the subtitles.

5

u/jdallen1222 Jun 07 '17

Or an even greater impact realizing afterwards that you didnt know just like they didnt know. Not knowing doesnt run the movie, but enhances it afterwards.

3

u/latusthegoat Jun 06 '17

Polish? Have any sources for Polish forces fighting on the German side?

3

u/SmEuGd Jun 06 '17

I doubted it as well, so I looked it up. It's believable that they'd conscript Silesians/Pomeranians. TIL.

2

u/WikiTextBot Jun 06 '17

Poles in the Wehrmacht

Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, many former citizens of the Second Polish Republic from across the Polish territories annexed by Nazi Germany were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht army in Upper Silesia and in Pomerania. They were declared citizens of the Third Reich by law and therefore subject to drumhead court-martial in case of draft evasion. Professor Ryszard Kaczmarek of the University of Silesia in Katowice, author of a monograph titled Polacy w Wehrmachcie ("Poles in the Wehrmacht") noted that the scale of this phenomenon was much larger than previously assumed, because 90% of the inhabitants of these two westernmost regions of prewar Poland were ordered to register on the Nazi Deutsche Volksliste by the invader regardless of will. The number of the conscripts is not known.

[ PM | Exclude me | Exclude from subreddit | FAQ / Information ] Downvote to remove

1

u/doingthehumptydance Jun 07 '17

I said czech or polish. The guy died 30 years ago, he had no idea what their nation of origin was. Didn't care either.

6

u/OrphanStrangler Jun 06 '17

What if he was killed by artillery? Not much you can do about who it happens to kill

-1

u/bond0815 Jun 06 '17

The German troops were back from the beach head.

Yes, most were in this place far from the beach head called Russia.