Author: Tyler Webb

Berlin: The Final Objective

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Our westward track towards Berlin to finish up the trip was fitting considering that this was how the Soviet Red Army finished off Nazi Germany and thus the war in Europe. However, Berlin was a fitting end in more regards because it was also the site in which a wall rose and the Cold War began. The conclusion of the Battle of Berlin was the marking of both an end and a new beginning. Personally, although on a much more positive note, I know that I grew tremendously from this trip as an individual and an academic in many regards. Perhaps one of the most important areas of growth was in regards to perspective. This journey challenged me not just to understand the perspective of these nations in regards to WWII but to appreciate and integrate them into my own thoughts. Germany offered our group one final perspective on our journey.

One of our first stops was the Reichstag, the German parliamentary building. It was on this building that the famous picture of the Red Army soldier raising the Soviet flag was taken. We were given a splendid tour of the building with the most intriguing parts being the original graffiti left behind by the Soviet soldiers that took over the Reichstag. A lot of the writing consisted of family names and places they had been. For instance, from Stalingrad to Berlin was written several times. The graffiti discussing the battles the soldiers were in was especially interesting because it brought my mind back to a discussion our class had about why the Western Allies did not march on Berlin. I imagined not only reading words, such as from Normandy to Berlin, on the walls but also what the world may have looked like today if that decision was made. This is still something I have yet to answer satisfactorily.

OHIO in front of Reichstag
(left to right: Beau, Katie, Natalie, myself)

Russian graffiti in Reichstag

The German story about the war was largely made of analysis as to the rise of Hitler. In the German Historical Museum the displays on the rise of the Nazis was longer, at least if felt much longer, than the war itself. The German narrative also makes no attempt to deny the terrible acts committed by the Nazis. I believe this, in combination with the focus on the rise of fascism in Germany, serves as a sort of reconciliation for the German people and a service to humanity to try and prevent future atrocities. Another important stop in our story of Germany during the war was the courtyard in which Claus Von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg, along with his fellow conspirators, attempted to assassinate Hitler and establish control over the Third Reich. This was the story in the film Valkyrie, which featured Tom Cruise who really does look quite similar to Stauffenberg. Anyway, Stauffenberg represents a part of the small disjointed individuals that did seek to end Hitler. Stauffenberg’s intentions were not entirely pure because he only sought peace with the Western Allies and a continuation of the war on the Eastern Front. Regardless, the actions of him and his comrades serve as a reminder that not everyone supported Hitler in Germany.

Where Stauffenberg was shot with his fellow conspirators

Another interesting aspect of the telling of WWII in Berlin is the presence of Soviet memorials and museums. These interject the Soviet perspective into the telling of the German one and I am curious to know if there are any American or British monuments in their previous sectors. Regardless, the Soviet monuments make sense. I believe it is often lost on Americans simply how brutal the Eastern Front was. It was an ideologically death struggle in which the victory of one power meant the complete and utter destruction of the other. The Soviets suffered tremendously and Berlin served as their prize.

Soviet memorial, note the swastika he is stepping on and the child he is holding.

Soviet monument

I want to take the final bit of this final blog to discuss what made this trip so incredibly memorable: the people. This begins with the generous donors who allowed my colleagues and me to have the experience of a lifetime and grow tremendously in many regards. It is something that I am incredibly grateful for and cannot do justice for in words. Additionally, the faculty that led this study abroad were simply exceptional and the trip would not have been the same without them. Dr. Steigerwald: the man, myth, and machine and Lauren Henry never failed to make every moment memorable. Finally, I left Europe with twenty-two individuals that I am proud to call friends. They are amongst the remarkable individuals I have ever had the pleasure of meeting and it was hard to watch the trip come to an end. From the pubs of London and shores of Normandy to the museums of Poland and the beer gardens of Germany we never stopped making memories.

The study abroad family

Thank you to all of these individuals for both an efficient and aesthetically pleasing journey.

-Tyler R. Webb

Poland: A Tale of Suffering

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Poland suffered tremendously during World War II as its cities were only “liberated” from one occupier to be replaced by another. As the Cold War came to fruition the Polish peoples endured a prolonged occupation at the hands of the Soviets. However, the concentration camps, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, still stood on Polish soil. Although the Soviets proved to be harsh occupiers, they did work with the West German peoples to transform this hellish place of death into a place for education and remembrance.

My first steps into Auschwitz were amongst the most emotional moments I have ever experienced. As I gazed upon the sinister sign that greeted the thousands that died in the camp, “arbeit macht frei,” the reality set in that I was now in a place where approximately a million individuals died. This phrase, which translates into “work sets you free,” was just one of the many lies the Nazis told the Jews, Gypsies, political prisoners, and more that were sent to the camp. Simply put, there was no hope. There was no hope for freedom. The guard towers and electrical barbed wire killed most that tried to escape if they somehow made it past Nazi execution. These camps were designed for industrial scale murder, a fact made obvious by the museum. I appreciated the design of the museum in this regard; there was no attempt to censor the horrors. Instruction on the Holocaust should not be censored; our global society must appreciate that these atrocities arose democratically.

The entrance to Auschwitz-I

The “Gate of Death” through which trains entered Auschwitz-Birkenau

As we walked through the camp we saw many remnants from its victims. For me this made the humanity lost in the Holocaust all the more tangible. It is one thing to see pictures of these objects in textbooks; it is entirely another to see the shoes of a child sitting amongst the other 70,000 stolen from Holocaust victims only feet away. When we made over to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was the largest section of the camp, reality further set in. I was astonished at the sheer size of the camp. In order for the Nazis to massacre on an industrial level this camp was filled to capacity and its crematoriums and gas chambers constantly functioning. All that really remains of these structures are their skeletons; however, this is more than enough to convey their capacity to kill and the suffering they caused. As we neared the end of our tour of the camp we walked down the same path that those condemned to death did. Only after one of my colleagues, Jon Schulman, exceptionally spoke specifically about the role of luck in surviving such a place was I really able to reflect on that walk towards death. He also discussed the reversion to primal instincts in order to survive inside the camp.

Remains of a crematorium/gas chamber in Auschwitz-Birkenau

Tracks where individuals were off loaded to suffer

The combination of being at Auschwitz and Jon’s speech caused me to question whether it is inherent in humanity to carry out such evils as the Holocaust. Although I have yet to satisfactorily answer this question I have gained great insight to guide my thoughts from this experience.

Where the huts used to be for the victims in Auschwitz-Birkenau

View through gate into Auschwitz-Birkenau

France: The Toll of War

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On the morning of June 6th, 1944 thousands of young men sacrificed their lives on the beaches of Normandy in order to bring about the destruction of the Third Reich. Today, they are regarded as heroes for their actions. However, each nation differs in how they pay homage to their fallen soldiers from the Normandy operations and the war in general. This was best reflected in the cemeteries in the areas around the invasion beaches. It was truly a privilege to stand on the same sand where the liberation of Western Europe commenced and tour the cemeteries.

The first beach we visited was Utah beach, where the American 4th Infantry Division landed. Once I walked down to the shore line and turned around and gazed upon the same sandy slopes I was able to appreciate the magnitude of what the soldiers had been tasked with. I was stunned. It is one thing to read about these topics in books and documents, it is entirely another to be where they actually occurred. Our group also visited our first cemetery that day, the German one. I was immediately struck by the simplicity of the cemetery. In the Germany cemetery there were five crosses grouped together in various rows but the individual soldiers were marked by a plaque on the ground. These plaques were quite simple, only providing name, rank, and dates of birth and death of the individual. The most interesting bit of information on these plaques was the age of the fallen soldiers. Some were just boys, the youngest age I saw was sixteen. Some were relatively old; the oldest I saw was around forty years old, and likely able to recall the WWI. This age range highlights the state of the German armed forces at this point in the war in many instances. The cemetery wasn’t that large, and the stones were a plain brownish stone color rather than the traditional white or cream colored stone in most military cemeteries. In my mind, the purpose of the German cemetery was to remember the lives lost, but not their actions or their cause. This was in stark contrast to the American and British cemeteries.

The German cemetery, notice the lack of floral vegetation and general plainness

The grave of Michael Wittmann, a German tank ace, and his crewmen

The American cemetery was the next one we visited, and it was by far the largest and most extravagant of the three. The sections are lined with row after row of white crosses, or the Star of David, perfectly aligned from several viewpoints. These crosses contained a bit more information than those in the German cemetery, such as regiment and the state they were from. I believe the absence of the regimental information on the German graves reflects a desire to forget the military and objectives of the Third Reich while honoring the men who died. On the other hand, some of the information on the American graves was quite specific. For example, there were many instances of not only division but regiment being identified. My biggest critique of the American cemetery was the lack of personality provided to the soldier. It appeared as though they were not relinquished from their military service even in death. However, the British cemetery demonstrated a balance between honoring both the military service and the individuality of the men who gave their lives.

View of the American cemetery

The quote displayed before one walks onto the cemetery grounds

The graves at the British cemetery contained a greater diversity of representation ranging from Muslim graves to Jamaican. These graves also contain remarks from the families in addition to the military information, age, and name. It is these remarks that display a remembrance of the men not just as soldiers but also as sons, brothers, fathers, and more. I believe best embodiment of this concept was a quote from the family of C. E. A. Cox, Royal Army Medical Corps, on his grave: “The King called. He answered. The King of Kings called. He answered.” This reflects the soldier’s service to his king, country, and faith. Furthermore, the British cemetery also contained many graves marking the remains of German soldiers. This reflects the desire for postwar reconciliation between the two powers, but the same gesture is absent from the American cemetery.

View of the British cemetery, notice the floral vegetation right on the graves

When the King calls

Visiting these cemeteries and the landing beaches was compels reflection on the age on the graves across the cemeteries. In the Allied ones the age was more concentrated around the early twenties, while the German cemetery displayed a varied range from sixteen to forty years old. At the age of twenty-one, it is hard for me to imagine how I would have reacted in the situations that faced these valiant young men. It is painful to realize that the young Allied men never did see the results of their efforts and a world without a world war. This is obvious, they died of course, but it I simply have an entirely different appreciation of what they faced now that I witnessed the beaches they stormed. War has a cost, and often we forget that the statistics in our textbooks were young men and women with stories, families, and a future cut short.

Omaha Beach, the pictures does not do justice for the size of the hills the men had to storm

London & the People’s War

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As I disembarked from my flight at Heathrow airport I was filled excitement complemented by a significant tiredness. From the airport I utilized the subway system to get as close to the hotel as I believed possible. My approximation was off and I proceeded to take thirty minutes where ten would have sufficed. However, as I found throughout my time in London, it is often best to only have a general idea of the direction one wishes to go in so that exploration is done along the way. This was also the same mentality I used when going about the many various World War II sites throughout London.

The memory of WWII varies across the belligerents that engaged in the conflict nearly eighty years ago. The war is commonly referred to as the People’s War in England and this perspective was omnipresent in the various sites we visited. The idea of the People’s War entailed the fact that WWII in England was fought not just by the military, but by every individual in the British Isles. Our first stop to further develop our understanding of this perspective as a group was in the Churchill War Rooms.  Personally, this was the stop I most looked forward to in London. The rooms exist in essentially the same state as they did the end of the war in 1945. It was from here that Prime Minister Winston Churchill directed the war with his cabinet. The museum portrayed the People’s War mentality effectively with a combination of posters, objects, and speeches from the time. The most immersive portion of the museum was Churchill’s speeches playing in the background. It was as he spoke the famous “we will never surrender” line that I was looking at some posters about the involvement of women in the war. Specifically, I was looking at one that discussed mothers and wives sending their husbands and sons off to war and the woman was holding her child’s hand. Personally, I reflected on the struggle families faced between duty to country and family. This is a struggle not uncommon to nations at war, but it is one that was especially painful for a people that had fought World War I only about twenty years prior. The strain of WWI on the English was far greater than anything experienced by American society. The map room at the museum also made the loss of civilian life for the English much more tangible. Within this room there was a chart that tracked the V-1 and V-2 rocket strikes.

A chart showing various statistics regarding “flying bombs”

This chart was just the beginning of my experiences with the memory of V-weaponry. The most emotionally moving of these experiences was when a few friends and I visited the Guard’s Chapel. It was in this location on June 18, 1944 that one of these weapons struck the chapel, killing over 200 of those inside. To stand in the exact spot where this occurred and think about how such a large structure was simply annihilated was breathtaking. No individual was safe from these terrifying weapons, civilian or military. When we visited the Imperial War Museum I had a chance to see both a V-1 and a V-2. I had seen pictures of these weapons before, but seeing them in person further developed my appreciation for their destructive capability. In this museum I also came across a display of the various armbands and helmets worn by the civilians in London that assisted in its survival throughout the war. They were uniforms, identical in purpose to those utilized by soldiers in the British military. This, along with many other exhibits and experiences, makes it difficult to distinguish the soldier from the civilian when England was under attack.

V-1 (front/smaller) and V-2 (back/larger) rockets

Part of the memorial to the fallen Royal Guards at the Guard’s Chapel

My favorite site I ventured to outside of the group activities was the HMS Belfast. This British warship is anchored in the Thames River, its final resting spot after a long service to its country. During WWII, this ship protected convoys in the Atlantic and also supported the Normandy Invasion. The most significant damage the ship suffered during the war was when it struck a German mine. I was able to stand in the exact spot where this mine ruptured the ships armor. The mannequins and plastic props may seem corny initially. However, as I toured the ship these, combined with speakers playing a mimic of noise on the ship, helped me appreciate what it was like to be a sailor in the Royal Navy. I was especially surprised by the amazing labyrinth of passage that existed on the ship and how small most of the passages were. It is easy to imagine after my tour how important discipline must have been when the moment of battle arrived otherwise chaos would have reigned.

Forward turrets of the HMS Belfast

My time in London was the perfect start to my WWII journey. England was the last stronghold of liberty in Europe after the fall of France, an idea not lost to Churchill and the British people. I know am able to have a much greater appreciation for what the war cost the civilians of England in the People’s War. On an unrelated note, I am currently studying the 37th Infantry “Buckeye” Division that fought in the Pacific during WWII. I was able to locate the division on a British map tracking U.S. forces in the map room in the Churchill War Rooms, which I found intriguing.

37th Infantry Division tag below a map of U.S. Pacific movements

Europe

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Hello,

My name is Tyler Webb. I am a major in microbiology and history with a focus on military history. I focus my studies quite heavily on World War II. This WW II study abroad has been something I have looked forward to ever since I heard about it freshmen year. Now, going into my fifth year, I will finally get to go. See you all across the pond.

 

 

TW