A Veteran's Recollection of a Nazi Rally

[freakjeep73]

I'm a volunteer at my local war history museum, and earlier this year, we had a very interesting man come in to visit. I don't really want to disclose his full name because I'd rather have permission from the man before I do so, but he did give me permission to tell his story, his first name is Phil. Phil was a member of an organization that was a lot like Boy Scouts before World War II broke out. In the mid 1930's, Phil and his organization traveled over to Germany to visit the house of a famous German poet. Upon arriving to Germany, it had been discovered that the poet was sick and unable to have visitors. The group had already booked to stay the night at a local inn, so they decided to take a walk for the day and look at some monuments, until they saw a crowd starting to form. Phil told me that he, at that point, saw a car pull up with a German officer inside. The Officer spoke in German to the Organizer of the trip for a while, and then pointed to the group and told them to follow him. The Officer led them to a local restaurant's porch area, which was empty amongst the crowd, and he told them to stay there. About 30 minutes later, a bunch of German soldiers came up to the group and handed out candy and chatted with the kids. After the kids had grown fond of the troops, (because remember, they had no idea about the anti-semitism or human rights violations at the time) the soldiers requested that the kids to stand up straight and at attention. Moments later a car pulled up, and Adolf Hitler himself steps out to greet the group. It was just a quick handshake and pat the on shoulder, and Hitler told the kids that they were fine young men, and he got back into his car. The kids then watched Hitler speak at what was now understood to be a political rally from their porch view. Phil thought that this Hitler guy was great, but that totally changed when he saw how brainwashed the people there seemed to be. And when they all shouted their solute at Hitler and raised their right arms, he said that he was terrified. After the rally, the group was allowed to leave and return to their rooms. At the museum, Phil told me that he figured the Germans were being so nice because they wanted the American kids to go home and tell everyone how great Germany and the Nazis were. Phil later enlisted in the U.S Army and served during the war as a tank crewman. He retired from the Army years later, and now he runs a small store in my hometown. I just thought that this was an incredible story, and I wanted to tell it here so that it could be digitally archived, and get a little bit of appreciation from others. Also I was always bad at ending essays in school so I'm going to leave it here.

[josegarcia8578]

Wow, thanks for the story. Salute him for me!

[ViewfinderGyrene]

Amazing and eerie story, thank you for sharing! Such a sobering thought that in a few short years, men who can tell such significant, first-hand stories will be gone. No longer will we hear in-person about coming eye-to-eye with the Axis...