What a sight to have witnessed. The end of the first Cold War must have been an exhilarating time

and almost 40 years Britain is almost as bad. Not much to celebrate.

Sei stato un testimone della storia. Involontariamente ,hai scritto un pagina di libro della tua vita senza rischiare e ricca di emozioni,bellissimo e grazie per la tua testimonianza!

I bet when you look around you at the modern united and 'free Europe' and compare it to the cold war europe you kinda wish we had a nuclear war un the 80s eh? This place is a mess!

@@JagdgeschwaderX britain is as bad as the stasi or we are as leftwing as the east germans? Whats your point??

Glad you enjoyed it!

*I love your channel with old DDR footage my friend. :)*

@@ITNArchiveI just found your channel and I love it. East Germany investigated is also good

@@ITNArchiveI have to ask a question. When the first gate opened because of the pressure, I remember seeing this guard in disbelief who looked like he tried to memorise the face of each person that passed. A really bad day at work! Was there ever an interview with this guy??

De​@@NandiCollector

The facial focus is probably for the Stazi’s sake.

And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. - John 3:16 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. - Acts 3:19 If you’re in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church (These are conservative and actual Presbyterian churches) If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms Lutheran church. If you’re Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC. (Different from the Church of Scotland) If you’re English I recommend the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England & Wales and the Free Church of England (Different from the Church of England) Also online you can look up church finders for each of the groups, it will show you locations .

@@mattskustomkreations🦙

And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 29:13 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life. - John 3:16 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. - Acts 3:19 If you’re in North America, please go check out any of the churches available to you: PCA, OPC, Rpcna/Rpc, Urcna, or a canrc church (These are conservative & actual Presbyterian churches) If you can’t find one of the conservative presby churches then, maybe a Lcms Lutheran church. If you’re Scottish, I recommend the Free Church of Scotland and the APC. (Different from the Church of Scotland) If you’re English I recommend the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England & Wales and the Free Church of England (Different from the Church of England) Also online you can look up church finders for each of the groups, it will show you locations

@@PeterMartyrVermigli_is_cool lama?

Сериал "ГДР" 2024 смотрели? Я окончил 8 классов ГСВГ Вюнсдорф в 1987, а год в 1982 жили в Галле . Обнимаю тебя дружище

@@user-tk1lm6ef7i Доброе утро.Служил в Наумбурге в/ч 83113, недалеко от Галле. Начал смотреть первую серию ГДР и что-то не зашло,может позже посмотрю...

Naumburg ist in Ostdeutschland !!!

Сотни восточных немцев были убиты при попытке перебежать на Запад, ГДР - это мертворожденное государство, созданное по советскому образцу, такое же тоталитарное государство, их госбезопасность ( тайная полиция - Штази ), была создана по образцу НКВД - КГБ, пресекала любое инакомыслие, руководил ею генерал Мильке - в начале 30 годов убивший двух полицейских и скрывшийся в СССР, после войны войны вернулся и был назначен руководителем " Штази ". На видео в толпе это гражданская полиция. ведет себя вполне мирно и даже растерянно, практически безоружные. МИльке судили после объединения Германии, но в силу престарелого возраста дело по - моему прекратили!

REALLY ! THATS AMAZING ! I NEVER MEET ANYONE SERVED IN DDR ! YOU ARE PART OF HISTORY !

Were you allowed to interact with East Germans, go to restaurants, nightclubs etc? Could you visit the West?

During my visits to the DDR (1972 and 1977) I never once saw a Soviet soldier.

@@Jean-rg4sp I suppose you'd been in Berlin only. Berlin was the only place soviet military were not allowed to be seen. Except for 3 motor-rifle batallions as guards of honor of the Unknown Soldier Monument.

cool catch thank you!

you can tell from the cuff title@@Rostov_red_beard

The current club president of 1. FC Union Berlin Dirk Zingler did his military service with the "Feliks E. Dzierzynski" Guards Regiment if I'm not mistaken.

Was it not Erich Mielke that gave them that name?

Named after the head of the Cheka, no less.

Quatsch, they looked better than your Führer's mustache! Your people glorified him in the early 40s and paid a big price till October 1989!

hell yeah. In Russia we all have had the same mullet haircut those days

And the tacky denim bomber jackets!!

Well not everybody had a mullet Hair do 🤔🤔😉

I don’t know if I’ve seen this, I’m from Sweden and we may not have seen as much as Germans did. I was in awe when this events happened. There was a border guard, Harald Jäger, that opened the Bornholmer Strasse gate and when he did, there was this other guard who witnessed everything in disbelief. He looked like he tried to memorise the face of each individual that passed. It would be interesting if there was an interview with this guy. Do you know if there exists such an interview?

​@@TheFrewahAll this DDR because of the man with the funny mustache. 45 years of suffering after the war

@@m42037 Initially I thought about The Bearded One, Charlie Marx. But you meant Ulbricht of course who had a funny mustache indeed. I was very happy when the insanity came to an end.

@@TheFrewah That's an interesting take. To me the mustache man who started this is the one of austrian descent. Marx was a hopeless romantic, Ulbricht was just an idiot.

@@TheFrewah That's an interesting take. To me the mustache man who started this is the one of austrian descent. Marx was a hopeless romantic, Ulbricht was just an idiot.

Thanks for watching!

​@@ITNArchiveAll this because of one man that ruled from 33-45

Wir müssen Ordnung haben !

I never saw one being used before this.

Беннето Муссолини хотел Рим империю 😅❤

visit turkmenistan or belarus or north korea and (and many more) it is like you travelled back in time

Oops, I think a Troll reported my comment

Further, Gorbachev made it clear that the Soviet Army was no longer available to respond to domestic unrest in E. Germany.

That's a lie. Gorbachev wasn't going to save anything. The USSR and other socialist countries (except China) began to degrade after the beginning of market reforms. The result of such reforms was the privatization by Russian/Soviet politicians and foreign corporations of everything that had been built in the USSR for decades

Or you might say they both were just in time. Ceaușescu clearly was too late...

@@Dutch_Uncle He really ruined a great country and led to the current world turmoil that bastard.

Didn't he mean to say "When we decide the wall can come down people will be able to cross immediately", but somehow blurted out "you can cross immediately" live on TV? Imagine the greatest political upheaval of the decade happening because the autocue was too fast.

@@michaelmartin9022 Nope. Honecker (who resisted reforms and insisted on hard line commie dictatorship) was removed from power on 18th October 1989 and was replaced by Egon Krenz, who was more inclined to reforms, nonetheless still planned to retain socialism (to add - people trying to cross to West Germany were still shot at when Krenz was in power, so he certainly was not a "good guy"). However after waves of emmigration through Czechoslovakia (where people were sheltered by West German embassy in Prague and then were sent in trains to West Germany) and Hungary (where commie government already fell) and especially after realizing, that GDR was on the verge of bankruptcy (which was kept secret even from high ranked party members), Krenz was forced to deal with travel policy reforms. Politburo then discussed this topic on 9th November 1989 with Günter Schabowski chosen to present results of the meeting on the press conference to the western media. However, what he didn't know, was WHEN will the new travel policy take effect. That was discussed during a smoke break, where Schabowski wasn't present. So when he was asked, WHEN will the new travel policy take effect, he started looking through his papers and still didn't find the answer. So he said "As far is I know, immediately, without delay." Politburo went furious, but as people were already storming border checkpoints after hearing Schabowski on TV with guards being so overwhelmed, that they didn't resist. In a few hours, Berlin Wall literally fell. Probably just due to one party member not going to the smoke break. If you're interested, here is the press conference with Schabovski: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gMiqm6t4yKveXXk.html

@@jindrichlnenicka7214 Incredible that Honecker was given the boot not even two weeks after the 40th anniversary. At this point, things were happening very quickly. The collapse of East Germany took not only the DDR but even the BDR by surprise. Western politicians found it hard to keep up. When this was filmed, reunification seemed like a dream, within six months it was nearly fait accompli.

@@cv990a4 Yeah, imagine even how KGB HQ in Dresden must have felt witnessing all this going on around them and powerless to stop it. A certain junior officer stationed in East Germany at the time still never got over this........

​@@mlc4495 OK , THAT FUCKING GUY IS tovarits lilliputin !!!

Oh, thats cool. I was born and live in Koblenz.

"Letzte Ölung" kommt mir in den Sinn.

@@andreasu.3546 Dazu die passende Musik: Trauermarsch aus Saul kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bpiVoaV4u72cpn0.html

​@@andreasu.3546A dirige.

Понятное дело, когда единственное веселье который ты любил это гей парад.

Imagine how different things could have been had he not been given that question.

Agree. They would have had more time to work out and try a new version, more calibrated to reaity. With Eric Hoenecker deposed and a new cast in charge they might have bought time for a new and reformed version. It shows how fragile the system was, and how clueless everyone was, the westerners as well as the EG leadership and the Soviets and the press, about the discontent in the population and the fundamentel fault lines through the system. However, the leaders of some of the workers militia units had advised their superiors that their troops would be unreliable if called upon to respond to unrest in the population. The real hero is Harald Jaeger. He was serving was serving as duty officer in charge of the border guards at the Bornholmer Strasse crossing that night. He could not get direction from his chain of command about what to do with/to the multitudes after Gunther Schabowski's premature announcement, so he ordered his troops to open the gates. It could have been a bloodbath, a reenactment of the Tianamen Square slaughter. He gets a "Profiles in Courge" medal for his actions and non-actions that night.

​@@Dutch_UncleEven if the question had not been asked there and then it would have been asked soon enough as East Germany had already lost control of the situation with the opening of the Hungarian border and so was bleeding people so not matter what they attempted in reforms they were facing economic collapse.

Thatcher and George Bush were terrified of a reunited Germany and secretly tried to generate money to keep East Germany afloat, but it was too far gone.

from a Nazi he became a communist, and then he became a capitalist. Great career

Рим империю

Oh that's easy: just think about a press briefing in Baghdad where "Comical Ali" also known as Baghdad Bob ist trying to tell you Americans are committing suicide "by the hundreds" right before the gates of Baghdad while at the same time American tanks are rolling through the streets... That kind of propaganda where you get bombarded with drivel detached from reality you get to see in North Korea , China or Russia.

The sounds are real! To find the answer yourself you just need listen if they fit the scenes. Most added sounds are a mess and inconsistent in tone and volume and for that reason very obvious to note.

Some of it seems post effects. The squeaky stroller wheel, and the absense of sound in other parts makes me believe its done for greater emotional effect.

Of course they're real, 1989 wasn't THAT long ago, they had microphones 😂

It does seem oddly quiet

@@jefforymitchell5697 It's entirely possible that the sound was recorded separately and dubbed afterwards. I've come across a LOT of 1980s 16mm footage and it's actually quite rare to find sound on it. The sound is probably correct for the day, but recorded remotely from the camera and added later.

What happened to him after unison?

Do the former leaders of GDR get a pension from Greater Germany?

@@kerentolbert5448No. Most of the NVA was disbanded, with no compensation. Some were retained in the Bundeswehr with reduced rank.

@@kerentolbert5448 Of course they did, and their stooges too, but the leaders all are long dead now, they were old then and 34 years have passed.

@@aayushdas19 I believe he died soon after of cancer in Moscow.

I think they used film rather than a video recorder

There are films from the 1920s and 1930s with absolutely EXCELLENT quality,

und wieso sprichtst du nicht deutsch? hahahaha

Warum haben Sie das gesagt? Ich spreche gut Deutsch und habe auch die Sprache auf die Universität studiert......😮 Komisch.....?

From what I've heard. It's a song called "Immortal Victims". You may need to translate it to German in case you can't find it.

Вы жертвою пали в борьбе роковой.

Did Musik heißt : wann fällt die Mauer?!

Wieso sterbende DDR? Wir wurden verraten und verkauft ! Wir haben den WK II 2 x verloren.

Correct. East Gernans would have been quite satisfied with their fiberglass body 2 cycle Trabants far far into the future; meanwhile Mercedes Benz , BMW, Porsche just over the border. Nothing to see here, no?

"No one wanted reunification" - What about the thousands that fled the country before 1986, 93 of them paying with their life? You think they wanted out but did not want reunification?

The DDR was a total disaster and an awfully oppressive state. A horrid and evil place.

@@Sean-fj9pn 🤡

You mean after the Soviets couldn't afford to prop them up anymore??

Yes sir. The Steel helmet Thale-Harz. Or BII. It was rejected by hitler for aesthetic reasons

@@rocketchile My God! I just wrote the same comment before seeing yours.

32:03

I bought my alarm clock at London Airport (Heathrow) made in the DDR. Very reliable. I was never late for work.

We were protesting against the socialist government and the wall

It’s phenomenal and it really should have been the anthem of a United Germany.

Have you ever seen the film “Top Secret!” from the 1980s? It has an East German National Anthem: Hail, hail East Germany Land of vine and grape Land where you’ll regret Any try to escape No matter if you tunnel under Or take a running jump at the wall Forget it The guards will kill you If the electric fence doesn’t first

'Auferstanden aus Ruinen' - Hanns Eisler

Западная Германия так же под властью диктатур. Плюс к тому же, она оккупирована иностранными войсками.

Конечно, Запад был оккупирован иностранными войсками, как и любая захваченная страна, но восточногерманские граждане сильно пострадали от коммунистической структуры Стази и лишения базовых прав.@@1972Toljan

@@yotypicalgamer2727 По-моему восточные немцы гораздо больше пострадали после поглощения их западной Германией. Их даже называют с пренебрежением " Осси", словно это люди второго сорта. И лишены они были не базовых прав, а многих материальных благ при ГДР, что было правдой при неуклюжей социалистической экономике.

ФРГ не ангел хранитель,тоже вассалом стал Батраком вирусом США

The DDR was the most advanced economy and standard of living of all the Warsaw Pact countries.

I JUST left that same comment!😂

They look horrible😂😂😂 and hilarious

@@ANewHandTouchesTheBeacon >> They’re like the goose-step march; would only work in a country where you’re not allowed to laugh at the military!

Гитлер свастика 😅

These ugly helmets deformed these handsome young men. They were fixed on the head much to high. The boys looked like mushrooms.

Did you live in East Germany at the time? From the perspective of an American who had yet to be born, all of this is fascinating to me.

@@literarynick Yep, I was a child and was a foreign visitor for only a few years. But old enough to go on the Metro to Alexanderplatz and visit these attractions. It was raw. And was glad to have experienced a world that no longer exists. I must say, I found the East Germans to be a friendly bunch. They weren't used to seeing foreign faces that much and so were always curious and friendly. I guess now a days, the opposite is the case in Berlin lol.

@@literarynick Oh and Berlin was much cleaner from what I remember, as well as no Graffiti on walls or trains/metro.

@spidyman8853 I lived in Berlin in the 80s and 90s. The east had no graffiti but plenty of coal marks. Every building had deep nasty black stripes like tears going down them. Similarly, many of the buildings in the east were made with Soviet asbestos concrete, which was soft and brittle. This caused many of the apartments and other high rises to tilt to one side in a crazy fashion. There was a constant palor of burning in the air you couldn't get away from.The east while devoid of graffiti was a very dirty and bleak place.

No, the wall had not yet come down.

ich nicht …. good riddance!

Я вас очень понимаю.

You both can always move to russia. I hear it’s about the same over there right now as it was in east Germany back then.

@@sqweege6432 why should I go to Russia? Which part of “good riddance” didn’t you understand?

It’s DDR. We don’t want English here. Germany above all, Ami go.home.

Younger than Biden

Бетонным головам жилось очень хорошо👌👍😇😮

It was typical for many Commie countries: once someone took power, they remained there for decades. East Germany had de facto 3 leaders in its lifespan, 2 of whom were in office for roughly 20 years each. A bit like the Soviet Union's Leonid Brezhnev, who was in power for 18 years (1964-1982). These 3 were surpassed in "seniority" only by Albania's Enver Hoxha (1944-1985, 41 years), Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito (1943-1980, 37 years), Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov (1954-1989, 35 years), and Poland's Władysław Gomułka (1945-1948 + 1956-1970, 17 years). Outside of Europe we have Cuba's Fidel Castro, who ruled Cuba for an astounding 49 years (1959-2008).

it was always meant to be temporary. wishful thinking on the USSR's part thought the west would turn communist. unfortunately (or thankfully depending on who you ask), that didn't happen.

The east german people wanted it to happen. and so it happened.

Every country is doomed to fall, because every efficient country eats their best children thru war or thru hard work. It's just question how long you can manipulate people.

Actually East Germany was the most productive and reliable member of the Warsaw Pact, the USSR no more wanted to lose East Germany than witness its own end a short time later.

@@jamesferguson5279They are Germans after all, you can put them under a medieval feudal society and they ll still do just fine.

It must have been most unexpected. You knew it was historic

@@TheFrewah well, all soldiers had to get through that check point if they wanted to cross the Wall with a military authorization. U.S., British or French soldiers of the Allied occupying Forces though had to be in their own district between midnight and 6:00 am local time.

Наполеона Бонапарт

Those are VoPos (VolksPolizei), the State Police basically. They are hooted at because they are there to maintain order in a very difficult situation

Actually Honnecker went to China in 1986. Egon Krenz visited China in 1989 but not during the time of the fall of the Berlín Wall. Egon Krenz was trying to hold things together but the process in East Germany was out of his hands and out of the hands of the government. I was 27 at the time listening to the two Germanies on shortwave radio [1989]

Gosling sounds german to me. Somewhere in the past they might share a common ancestor.

He looks more like Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story movie) than Ryan Gosling...

You’re both wrong, Ost Deutsch John Cleese

followed by margaret mcpoyle from always sunny

ryan gosling with a slight habsburg jaw?

Вы жертвою пали/You Fell Victim to a Fateful Struggle

Their uniforms look like wehrmacht styled too. Yet their drill is so sloppy.

No, the Wehrmacht used an updated version of the classic Stahlhelm…if I’m spelling it right!

@@jaybee9269 He says its based on a prototype. The prototype is the Steelhelmet B II. Actually a few were made befeore the war ended.

@@rocketchile >> Thanks, I didn’t know.

This was an era filled with hope. I can still remember those days. There was a feeling in the air that can't be put into words. This was history being written. I'll always carry it with me.

❤❤

It depends on what propaganda footage you're seeing at the moment ;)

@@sleeper976 you right, it was a joke. I know, I was born in USSR.

@@chuck77k No, East Germany actually had by far the highest living standards and HDI among the Communist and socialists countries in the world.

How so?

However, in search of its own "German" and "socialist" military tradition, the state leadership soon ordered a change in appearance. As a result, new uniforms were introduced when the NVA was founded in 1956. These were very similar to those of the Wehrmacht. They were made of stone-gray cloth and had a similar cut, although from 1974/79 there were no high-necked, dark collars (except on the coats). The peculiarly flattened NVA helmet corresponded to the German Wehrmacht's experimental model "B/II" developed by Fry and his colleague Hänsel from the Institute for Defense Materials Science, Berlin, which had been in testing since 1943 but was no longer introduced. The GDR magazine "NBI" wrote in 1956 about the newly introduced steel helmet: "The members of the National People's Army of our GDR are better protected by the new steel helmet made of first-class material with the sloping shape. It was modeled after the earlier German steel helmet, taking into account the latest experiences created and ensures freedom of observation and movement". According to Willi Stoph and Walter Ulbricht, the aim was to emphasize the NVA's German "national character" with the traditional appearance, which, as critics complained, was similar to that of the Wehrmacht. The NVA's appearance was intended to consciously distinguish itself from the "US mercenaries" of the Bundeswehr, whose uniforms had initially closely resembled the appearance of the US troops since their founding in 1955, which Stoph described as an "overhanging capitalist costume" and "abandonment of the patriotic honor".

Yeah, reminds me of those 1933-45 guys.....

@@F40PH-2CAT So? The uniform is still a great design.

@@OswaldOstfalenThat’s complete bullshit

@@hannovonbahrenfeld5986 Keine Ahnung. Habe das gegoogelt und als Antwort bekommen. Mr. Schlau.

Is there still a behaviour difference between people from east Germany and people from west Germany to this day?

​@tigerland4328 Even fairly recently west Berlin had the modern white LED street lights but much of east Berlin the old orange sodium kind. You could see the poverty and lack of investment from space!

@@michaelmartin9022 that's interesting. We have a north south decide in England (south in more wealthier than the north) but it's not the same as Germany.

@tigerland4328 yes there is. The older generation is still stuck in their ways. They grew up suspicious of everyone. The younger generation is different.

@@azthundercloud thank you. I was told by a German that the eastern Germans can be very suspicious of English folk but not so much in western Germany

Больше всего я смеюсь когда немцы покупают российские мотоциклы с коляской Урал. Российские мотоциклы с коляской делают на заводе еврея. Еврей Илья Хаит продаёт немцам рассово-еврейские мотоциклы с коляской.

Germans tell me that the old East Germany still hasn't completely integrated. On the other hand, people share more in common than they differ. I had a professor who grew up in the People's Republic of China, he's now retiring at 66 or 67. I asked him if China ever truly adopted Communism or was it just something required to get along. He thought it was a very good question, lol. I suspect that Communism never settled in completely anywhere. People think, they argue, they have ideas, they know about other ways of life. We're not all equally attached to capitalism either or, I'm afraid, to our own particular varieties of democracy.

Not quite true, the youngsters in pioneers organisation/Free German Youth were mostly ideologically "formed" so I can imagine they struggled as well when the whole world they've lived in dissapeared overnight.

They actually had to work, and show merit which was a shock to many used to eastern/communist low expectations. I remember many people being upset they didn't immediately get a 100,000 mark a year job and a BMW 5 series for merely showing up to work at a low skill job.

@@ragnarulrichson778 The problem was in the propaganda that the people of the socialist countries believed, blind faith and only a few wondered how the system worked and therefore a thousand people, especially the people of the USSR, were disappointed in the democracies

Ты врёшь!!!

@@__i__i____i__i__8705 да-да-да... Все врут, кроме россиян. Но, как говаривал один наивный россофил: сила, брат, в правде. А правда такова: Московия утратила контроль над восточной Европо, она утратила острова на Амуре, Среднюю Азию, Закавказье, часть, Кавказа, Украину, Прибалтику, космос, автопром, северные потоки, рынки сбыта газа, 5 лет из оставшихся 15 лет жизни пенсионного возраста. Позавчера Московия утратила ещё один А-50. А в Германии, тем временем, благоухают Дрезден, Магдебург, Лейпциг - все веси, где больше нет русского сапога. Гыгыгы

Those helmets were originally designed for the Wehrmacht to replace the coal bucket helmets they were known for. The German border guards adopted a new Kevlar helmet styled like the DDR helmets

Not really. Look at the uniforms of the West German Bundesgrenzschutz which was the predecessor of the modern German army after WW2. They look pretty similar to those in the Wehrmacht. And even the uniforms of the Wehrmacht weren't the first of their kind. The uniforms of the Wachtruppe Berlin during the Weimar Republic also look like Wehrmacht uniforms.

O please! Just stay away from junk food and you’ll be fine.

And double denim.

1989: the mullet 2024: the douche knot At least I don't feel like vomiting when I see a mullet

That is because it was a socialist anthem.

1989 was the year it fell

@@RTDoh5 Oh well... Thanks for correcting. Must have confuaed it with the fall of the USSR in -91.

Потому, что всё здохло само собой, и фашизм вернулся... 😮

They do

It looks like the soliders in 1:00 are being roughed up by the people chanting 'Freiheit." Some of the soldiers have lost their headgear.

Elsewhere I think I heard "Gorbi! Gorbi! Gorbi!" and "Hoelt mich raus "(Get me out). Some of thecrowd/denonstrators were singing the Internatinalle, without professional direction but with enthusiasm. Also "Geh zurueck" (go back). I also noted tkhat many of the women had the same tint of red hair.

He’s doing pre recorded takes of the report that was to air on ITN.

Yeah, because they were probably the only soldiers in the warsaw pact that wanted to be in the warsaw pact. My wife is Polish, her grandfather and father were forced to serve in the Polish Army in the days of the warsaw pact. Don't get them started on how much they hate communists, lmao. They left Poland for the US before communism collapsed. My wife's grandfather was "technically" American. He was born in the US, but his family struggled to make it and moved back to Poland pre-ww2, I'm sure they regretted that decision.

Yeah, but that's no great honor.

@@tsdobbiThe idea that Polish people would be willing to fight for Russians is absolutely hilarious. I have met many polish people…