Execution of Nazi General who Skinned Children Alive: Erdmannsdorff

Narrator: Marchand Steenkamp.
About the story: Werner von Erdmannsdorff was born on 26 July 1891 in the town of Bautzen, in the Kingdom of Saxony, then part of the German Empire. When the First World War broke out in the summer of 1914, Erdmannsdorff was serving as a company officer. His battalion fought on the Western Front, where he was wounded on 23 September 1914. Throughout the 1920s, Erdmannsdorff moved between infantry and cavalry assignments, rising through the ranks. He also taught tactics at the Infantry School in Dresden and his teaching also reflected the lessons learned from the First World War. He belonged to a generation of officers who saw themselves as custodians of a professional military tradition untouched by politics - a belief that would later prove impossible to uphold under the Nazi regime.By the early 1930s, Germany was changing. The economy was collapsing, and radical movements were gaining ground. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took power in 1933, many professional officers, including Erdmannsdorff, greeted the new government with cautious optimism. They were not Nazis, but they welcomed the regime’s promise to rebuild the army and restore national pride. The personal oath to Hitler, introduced in 1934, bound them not just to the state but to the Führer himself, a moral trap that would define their future.During the early years of the Nazi regime, as the rearmament of the German army accelerated, Erdmannsdorff continued to rise through the ranks. The idea of a small army, then named the Reichswehr, was abolished and in 1935 the new German army, the Wehrmacht, was created in open violation of the Treaty of Versailles. When the Second World War began on 1 September 1939, Erdmannsdorff led his regiment during the invasion of Poland. His troops fought in the rapid campaign that crushed the Polish army in a matter of weeks. To officers like him, the early victories seemed to vindicate everything the new Wehrmacht stood for: efficiency, speed, and discipline. After the Polish campaign, he served on the Western Front in 1940 and later in the Soviet Union after 22 June 1941, when Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa.

Join World History channel and get access to benefits:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKKy_pNKZBX4KcCct8505HA/join

Disclaimer: All opinions and comments below are from members of the public and do not reflect the views of World History channel.
We do not accept promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on attributes such as: race, nationality, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation. World History has right to review the comments and delete them if they are deemed inappropriate.

► CLICK the SUBSCRIBE button for more interesting clips: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKKy_pNKZBX4KcCct8505HA/?sub_confirmation=1

#WWII #ww2 #nazi #kommando #history #holocaust #documentary #europe #operationbarbarossa #adolfhitler #warcriminals #warcrime #collaborators #worldhistory #history #worldwar2videos #yugoslavia #Wehrmacht #belgrade #stalingrad #einsatzgruppe #reichswehr #ww1 #operationbarbarossa

Werner von Erdmannsdorff biography, Holocaust in Yugoslavia, Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia , Nazi SS, Nazi war crimes, WW2 war crimes, War trials, Nazi criminals, War criminals, War criminals WW2, German war crimes, SS in Yugoslavia , Yugoslavia WW2, Yugoslavia during WW2, World War 2 Yugoslavia, WW2 Yugoslavia, WWII Yugoslavia, German occupation of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia after World War 2, Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Party, Josip Broz Tito,