I know this isn’t remotely rational, cause everyone involved but the lowest soldiers are dead, and I can’t stop anything or bring them back. But I’m watching the newest episode, August 22, just a few hours old and I have to stop the video every few minutes to calm my rage. This is NOT an indictment of Indy or the team, they are doing a good job I think, but I’ve stopped three times in six minutes looking at the Red Army commanders, and thinking of all their men and fuming Stalin would declare these men traitors and persecute their families if they don’t serve HIS interests. And I know almost everyone who surrenders this year is going to die of starvation in German hands.
So I haven’t gotten to Hitler’s shenanigans yet but well, he’s never disappointed yet this whole war in giving me a new reason to want to kill him, I have no reason to suspect he’ll end his streak now.
Am I the only one? And if you guys occasionally get this worked up, how do you cope? I don’t know if I can say I’m triggered in the actual sense of the term, although I have experienced gross cruelty and sadism in my life (not to this degree). I’m not saying I want the show changed or that I can’t bear to watch, I’d just like to know how to make my experience less stressful.
If I had to live through all this, I’d probably be dead from liver failure by 1943. But honestly, if it keeps people from idolizing these chuckleheads I’m all for it. These thugs in both leadership positions, they aren’t demonic to me anymore, they aren’t mythical in any way, there are just assholes. Total, nothing to redeem themselves assholes.
Actually, if I may make a suggestion, just one thing…just a little thing. I finished the video and this would not apply today, but in the end, just have someone doing SOMETHING nice on the eastern front. Some commissar or NCO who gave his life so his unit could retreat with signed orders that they could not countermand, some chaplin who helped a few Jews escape certain death, the inciting incident for a low-level member of the Resistance deciding enough is enough, or even Soviet troops shooting NKVD soldiers pinning them in position or rowdy Wehrmacht soldiers getting super drunk and beating the shit out of SS guys. Anything to put a little light in the darkness. And little victory for the human race in the midst of all that misery and torment.
Indeed you make a really great point.Trying to convey my honest opinion. Yes it is horribly depressing and TG really doesn’t sugarcoat anything like movies of the time tend to do. Probably because “movies” also care about the rating and tend to use a “good guy/bad guy” format with some humor to light up the atmosphere (and leave the audience satisfied for their ticket price). I don’t think that had Timeghost a TV series they would have made it passed the management bar. And I find this often pretty depressing to watch as well but keep it up.
As for the Eastern Front: s horrible as my family had it from a Western Country they at least were not caught in the middle between 2 horrendous regime.
Were there some positive things? Well my grandmother who was in the “arbeitseinsatz”. The choice of either working for Germany or starving to death. She managed to hide a Russian female Doctor in the shelter (those were forbidden for “Soviets/Russians” and she learned to speak Russian fairly well. Also they seem to have made the best of a horrible time. Sharing pieces of black (=German) bread. Actually sneaking in Soviets was forbidden and likely would have got here killed.
Another slightly positive note was a German ME-109 pilot and Iron Cross holder who after he was shot down couldn’t believe he lost to a 5 feet tall blond girl. Litvyak. Warning: it is not all positive!
See vid below, Dr.Reina Pennington did some great research which confirms what my 83
y/o Russian tourguide told me. He was a pilot starting as a Il-4 tailgunner and ending on Mig-25. Great tourguide because he knows planes and can explain.
My grandparents lived through it. God only knows how. My Grandpa (Dziadzio) was a Soviet artillery soldier, taken prisoner… at some point in time.
I have a small transcription of my grandpa’s story, not all of it, just the parts that he was willing to tell in 1976. Sometime in the late 80’s or early 90’s he opened up a bit more and told Mom more of the story naming commanders, places and timelines. That was lost or destroyed after my Mom’s death against our permission. I’m very much watching this series to get as many nuggets I can piece together of Grandpa’s story and to piece together what facts I can. I feel I know much less than I ought to.
This episode hurt to watch more than most for me. He would have still been fighting at this point, but this was when he would be viewed as a traitor for being taken prisoner. He went to his grave fearing the NKVD / KGB would somehow find him and drag him back as a traitor. My mind can’t fathom it. But from this point on his fate was sealed once he became a prisoner.
Raw survival must have been brutal. He found a cow’s femur, for a month it was his only food. That was the good story, “It’s how I got strong teeth” he’d say.
It must have been hard. It happened, they got through.
Yes, I get very worked up over some of these episodes. Mostly I get by knowing it’s history and for the most part behind us - even if the effects sometimes linger. I cope by remembering to try to appreciate all the more the Time Ghost ethos of trying to tell the story as fairly and as accurately as it happened.
Thanks for posting this, @charlottev13. It’s a little nod of respect to Dziadzio and his mates who had it rough for a long time.
Their coverage of the Eastern Front has been beyond astonishing. It is very objective and I can sympathize with a lot of the soldiers who are stuck between a rock and a hard place. As a novelist, I keep getting this idea of a Soviet commander who was encircled and his final radio message to HQ is that he and his men are moving towards partisan activity. The question is: will he be seen as a hero or a traitor? Logic and reason don’t apply here after all.
I only wish the same were true for the ‘British’ fronts. These always tend to feel more accidentally biased than anything else.
but I guess you meant the others who stole his thunder.