Memories and Reassessments Joachim Weider is a German who more solid reflects on what has happened throughout his time at war. He looks at the leadership as well as the flaws that they have made along the way. Weider says he looks at all the men fighting for the Germans and all the loyalty that they gave to their leaders, but what for because their trust had been broken. They trusted in their leaders to do the right thing, to make moral calls for the sake of the war. These warriors then would listen to their leaders. Their leaders though, did not do that. They did not do what was moral and right. Weider said that he felt betrayed, lead astray. He looks back at what happened in Stalingrad and sees men dying for what they thought was for a good …show more content…
For what cause. At least for the Russians, he said they were defending their home. The Germans were attacking, and the Russians were defending, but why were the Germans fighting. For what purpose, Wieder wonders. He realized just how desensitized to killing and torture he and all his fellow German soldiers where. He saw how they did not even value human life at all. He says that all the men in the last days of at Stalingrad, when they recognized that they were going to lose, and they knew that that was the end. That this was the precise moment they then realized all that they had done. That is when they realized the pain and the suffering they had caused. It was like they all saw that the war they were fighting was wrong and their conscious made way back to them. Then at the end of the external war, started the internal war with themselves. The realization of everything that they had done. The leaders saw this and realized the insane orders coming from the headquarters. They had only ever listened to the commands blindly, acting on whatever they were told so that they would earn respect and honor. But now all that seemed pointless, they did not see that they were being soldierly. They only saw that they had not taken the responsibility they should have to think for themselves and their country to make a better decision and to make a better choice. They were still getting these orders that seemed wrong and inhumane and had been acknowledged by the staff. Wieder thought though it is still wrong just to sit back and do nothing about it too. But then he could be killed. He remembered all the torturing and all the things that they had done to others and he thought will they sooner or later come back to them