'My Grandfather, the Wehrmacht General in Russia'

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Angela Findlay was determined to find out if her grandfather, Karl von Graffen, was a Nazi and what he did on the Eastern front. An artist and speaker, Angela spent her youth feeling a constant sense of guilt and shame but couldn't figure out why. It wasn't until her 40s that she turned to her German roots and discovered that she was enmeshed in the horrors of Nazi Germany and the Second World War.

She knew her German grandfather had been a Wehrmacht general in the Second World War but never really understand what that meant. She set out on a research mission to find out what her grandfather had been involved in and what he'd known. Her journey took her across Russia to the swamps of the Volkhov Front where he’d fought in Operation Barbarossa in Hitler's war of annihilation.

Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!

Download History Hit app from the Google Play store.

Download History Hit app from the Apple Store.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History.
0:04.1	Challenging episode of the pod today, as someone who has descended from a long line of colonizers,
0:10.8	generals, I'm keenly aware of what it's like to think about your ancestors in terms of
0:15.3	their involvement in things that we now consider beyond the pale, unacceptable as human rights
0:20.4	abuses, crimes.
0:22.5	And my guest today is going through that process at the moment and is very courageously
0:27.6	sharing some of her thoughts about it.
0:30.2	She is Angela Findley.
0:32.5	She is half German on her mother's side.
0:35.1	She is German and her grandfather fought as a senior general in the Second World War.
0:40.5	It's a senior, very marked commander.
0:42.2	He personally interacted with Hitler.
0:44.4	He fought on the Eastern Front, amid scenes of monstrous crimes against humanity, of
0:50.5	genocide, of terrible barbaric violence.
0:54.2	And whilst he may not have expressed anti-Semitism in his letters home, he was part of a military
0:59.9	machine responsible for genocide.
1:03.7	She knew her German grandfather had been the very marked, but had never asked too much about
1:07.8	his wartime service.
1:08.8	Well, that changed in her forties.
1:11.0	She watched the movie downfall and decided that she wanted to understand about the difference
1:15.8	if any between the Nazis and senior military commanders.
1:19.7	Was it possible to be a patriotic, professional, German, general, a soldier, was maintaining
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.