At Least One German Was Glad Germany Lost World War II

One German soldier, then 18-year old Private Helmut Roemer, was glad, at least in retrospect, to see the Allies land in Normandy as the first step towards liberating the western half of the European continent from Nazism.

He also just happened to be the first German soldier to see the Allied soldiers arrive, hours before the landings at Normandy, when some airbourne British soldiers attacked.

Here, according to the article (see link and info below):

He was a guard on watch at Pegasus Bridge on the Caen canal in Normandy on the night of 5-6 June, 1944. He had imagined it would be routine duty but suddenly, from the depths of the sky, he heard a "swishing noise", which kept coming closer.

He and two German comrades hid in the bushes for 36 hours, before giving themselves up to the Allied troops. Initially, being made to stand for four hours in the water, and then being sent to various places in Britain as German POW's, the outlook seemed decidedly gloomy. But eventually, they began to feel that they had made the right choice, that they were going to survive!

Eventually, in 1947, two years after the war, he returned back to Germany, knowing not everyone would welcome him back. He warned his soon to be wife that he would be viewed by some as a coward, but she went ahead with it anyway, and they eventually had six sons.

Yet, that eternal moment of prominence in his life, his involvement with the Normany invasion, would obviously be what he was remembered best for. He was portrayed in a film (again, see the link and info below):

He was depicted in the classic film of D-Day, The Longest Day - he's the lanky German who shouts a warning and then runs. He later returned to Pegasus Bridge and became friendly with Major John Howard who commanded the British operation.

But, in the end, he is glad to have been "liberated" himself by the Allied troops on that day:

Today, he reflects on those events. It seemed unfortunate at the time but turned out to be very fortunate, not only for him but for Germany - it was a defeat but also a liberation. The presence of the German chancellor at the events commemorating D-Day bears that same message: Germany was defeated but liberated from its own madness.



Here is the link and info to the article I used to write this blog entry:



The German soldier 'liberated' by D-Day By Stephen Evans BBC News, Berlin, June 6, 2014:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27730193