People in the world are bound by very strong ties to others that are important to them. Whether or not this be family related or friendship, these ties are very strong and very often, commitment goes both ways. The world wars definitely put many of these relationships to the test as it strained them to their furthest extent. Some give up these ties and abandon the other while some strive on to carry out the commitment which the wars put upon them. I intend to show this through a recent interview with the charming Helmut Lemke, a German World War II veteran that served on the eastern front in the later stages of the war. His experiences after the war really shows the concept of self sacrifice.

Helmut Lemke, a German World War II veteran, has  his share of achievements and Rambo moments. In the later stages of World War II he was called away from his family to join the fight at around 17 years of age. His first deployment would be his last. He destroys tanks with Panzerfausts (German anti tank weapon) and scares a Russian tank crew to abandon their T34 tank after he threatens them with a Panzerfaust. He is then wounded and sent back to Germany to recover. The war ends and he is taken is a prisoner of war in his hospital bed in Germany. After he is released he has a choice to start a new life elsewhere, or fulfill his commitment to his mother who he believes to be still at their family home. He says that a nagging feeling in the back of his head forced him to go and find his mother. He journeys across Germany back to his home on the most eastern tip of Germany prior to the war. Along the way, he is met with many near death situations as he is hitchhiking his way by train with no proper travel documents. Many encounters with Russians at gunpoint and situations led him to have to dig deep in this craftiness and he got out of these messes every time with the friend he was travelling with. Some examples include pretending that he was a cripple (he was only injured) to escape being shipped off to Siberia after he was discovered on a train by Russians. Another example is when he was stealing potatoes from the Russians to eat (they had no money) and a Russian discovers them and holds them at gunpoint. He pretends he is French and a nearby group of Frenchmen save him and his friend. He makes it to his mother who was stricken with typhus in their home. He says if he had not gone back to her mother. She would not have been alive any longer.

Helmut Lemke in a German army uniform in WWII 1944.

What I took away from this interview was how much Mr. Lemke was willing to sacrifice all for the sake of his mother and for duty to his country.  While defending a defensive position in the Eastern front of World War II, he performed his duty without question and stayed to fight the enemy even when his comrades fled or retreated in the face of superior enemy numbers. His willingness to follows his orders let him have a couple of close brushes to death but that is what the concept of self sacrifice is about. Being willing to be killed in order to impede the enemy and going out to do it again and again shows his patriotism and most importantly, his willingness to sacrifice himself for others.

He crossed Germany has a man who was basically a criminal because he had no money, and by luck, got to her mother before she would be killed by typhus. He could have left his past behind him and continued down a more safe path to the future but he decided not to for sake of a relationship that is deeply rooted into his DNA, something that he has a commitment to and it must be completed. Even after he gets to mother healthy again, his commitment to keep his family safe from the Russians leads him to move the entire family to West Germany. Him going by himself would have been so much easier but he takes the entire family because is such a selfless man.

Helmut Lemke today in Vancouver, BC and was a school teacher for a long time.

The concept of self sacrifice is seen everywhere everyday. People still do it in the military simple acts such as a doing a favor or simply helping others shows people how this concept is an important and fundamental piece in society and human nature. This is because of no one helped each other only did things for gain. The human race would be a bleak and miserable people.

Below is a podcast that I did with my other PLP friends Luciano and Spencer. This was our first blog post so things were quite awkward while working out how to record it. I thought I was going to be good at it because I can talk a lot about these things but I figuratively choked throughout the whole podcast. Definitely not one of my best works but the others did great. Title card and editing by Stanfield.

This must be the biggest project that I have ever undertaken in my life. After our studies on the Shakespearean play “Macbeth”, the teachers assigned the entire class to make a movie based on “Macbeth” that would be set in World War II. Full of doubts and pessimism, we began our production. To this day, the movie is still being produced and filmed.

Scene with a main actor and his supporting actor on a great day.

Pre Planning

One of our teachers Mr. Hughes laid out a production structure that was similar to a real movie production crew. There would be a producer, director, their assistants, and all the other departments needed for a movie. Roles were assigned and I got the producer role. I had to lay out the general direction of where the movie was going to go and cast roles. The script writers promptly got to work and wrote. Props and costumes were given a rough idea of what ideas were needed so they could be prepared to make them. My director (Marley Harman) cast the actors. This process went on for several days which had deadly consequences for the production of the movie. The process did not go over well with the director as respect dropped off when her suggestions were sometimes not taken into account.

Filming.

Production

After at least 2 weeks of planning while the script writers wrote the script, a production schedule was written up by Marley and I. Production started with many glitches which included figuring out camera angles, plot holes in script, unconventional language in the dialogue of the script, and respect for leadership during the filming process dropped off. Numerous scheduling conflicts with the actors and crew made filming impossible during some days. Around an act was filmed on the first day of filming but the production rate dropped hard on the next filming day. It was a severely under crewed production day nothing got done in which I was not present for. Eager to find what the problem was excluding the reason of being under crewed, I went on the next day of filming when I was available. Production went very roughly but achieved a many scenes were filmed. After that, there was one more productive day where I went to which was a good day. Soon, we fell behind too much for the movie to be completed on time so the teachers stepped see if we wanted to scrap the project. The group decided to persevere with the movie so we cut down on details and are now trying to film all the main ideas to piece the movie together.

Scene captured using multiple camera angles of an actor inside of a tent.

My Opinion

The Bad (The Venting)

Never before have I experienced such a dismal performance by all the people in any project (including me). There were many contributing factors to this that I want to say in order for people to learn from in the future. As a producer, I had a lot of the deciding authority but found that authority meant really nothing as I had not earned the respect from many of the existing PLP students. Requests and orders were issued and followed tentatively at best. Some of these decisions may have not been the best for the group in which I was to blame but things like simple plot adjustments and equipment acquisition were not carried out. Many of the special equipment that Marley brought in did not make an appearance in the filming process. Another major key point that I found that is key to success of a production is authority. At many points of shooting where I was present, most of the crew and cast simply stood talked while others did most of the labor. Even when a scene was being filmed, they were still loud. Between scenes, there seemed to be a great rest break for everyone as it takes nearly an hour to get the next scene set p when it could have been much quicker if everyone concentrated on what they were doing. Repeated direction from Marley and I were ignored most of the time and filming took place a very slow pace which destroyed the production schedule. At some points, I tried to arrange a quick film shoot that involved an actual pub which Spencer had acquired some time from so that we could film. In the end what really sank our precarious boat that is our movie was the endless scheduling conflicts between actors and scenes. It was extremely difficult to schedule some scenes where maybe we had only one day to shoot and some were impossible to shoot which required me to recast the a character so that the movie can move on.

The director and associates look on as the props department set up ever present tent.

The Good

I have to say, the acting of all PLP students in the production was excellent and beyond my expectations. The crew drew from their experience some excellent filming ideas and camera angle ideas as well. If not for them, the film would look very boring with many static shots. Some of the crew were willing  to work on the project and accept direction without hesitation albeit with lack of effort.

The End Result

The movie is still being filmed but it has become a much more streamlined process thanks to Maria. In reflection to this project, I should have enforced and updated a production schedule much more. I felt that some of the the crews enthusiasm showed before filming but it disappeared as they waited for a scene to be set up for filming. If this project were to be assigned again, the class would probably give up immediately. This was a great learning experience for coordination and leadership. It really gave me an insight on how things work in a big team and I would hope to do this again with big changes made.

I still think Ms. Willemse should savage and roast whoever was not there for the first BBQing of the unlucky few who didn’t take the math contest.

      The time has come to close off the studying of Canada’s involvement during World War 2. The teachers have given each of us an assignment. The options were to write a blog post on one of three points that Canadians helped in bringing the Nazi regime of Germany to a close. I decided to do The Rhineland Campaign, a large Allied effort to break break the Siegfried line and capturing the Rhine.

Overall plan of the Allied assault.

      It was February 1945, the Allies mastermind a plan that will capture the Rhine. The plan was for British, Canadian, and American troops to attack in two formidable thrusts that would envelope the Rhine. The First Canadian army was ordered to spearhead one of these thrusts along with 3 other British divisions. The combined force was the biggest commanded by any officer of the Canadian Army. The Siegfried line stood in their way, the best defensive German defensive emplacements were deployed their. It represented a 4 month build up of troops, defensive structures, planning, and prewar preparations by the Germans on the line. Under the code name Veritable, this operation was intended to be a decisive blow to any more substantial defense that the Germans could muster on the western front.

A Canadian armored personnel carrier crosses a bridge during the operation.

     All the Allied forces began their attack on February 8th. Artillery barrages preceded the assault of troops. The Americans who were attacking as part of the second thrust were delayed by the weather which flooded places up to 3 feet deep (0.91 meters) which made the ground muddy and hard to walk on. Nonetheless, the Canadians and their British counterparts forced their way through the German defenses which caused the outer defenses of the Siegfried line to break. The British division’s attack slackened but the Canadian force took up the slack. The force continued to advance through the Siegfried line and finally managed to break it on March 10th. On that day, the Germans blew up some bridges to cover their retreat further back in the east bank of the Rhine.

The “Dragons Teeth” of the Siegfried line, these were mainly used to prevent Allied vehicles from moving across it.

      While the operation was a success, there were losses to the First Canadian Army. They took 15,634 out of which 5,304 were Canadian. While there were losses, this operation by mainly the Canadians forced the Germans out of their last major defensive line. German casualties numbered to 90,000 while dealing a total of 23,000 Allied casualties across all the Allied forces that participated in the battle.

Some examples of German defensive positions along the Siegfried line. Bunkers, anti tank guns, watch towers, trenches, and machine guns were just a few of what the Germans had in store for the allies. 

Below is a quote from General Eisenhower who justified the operation.

“In planning our forthcoming spring and summer offensives, I envisaged the operations which would lead to Germany’s collapse as falling into three phases: first, the destruction of the enemy forces west of the Rhine and closing to that river; second, the seizure of bridgeheads over the Rhine from which to develop operations into Germany; and third, the destruction of the remaining enemy east of the Rhine and the advance into the heart of the Reich. This was the same purpose that had guided all our actions since early 1944.” Eisenhower

With the introduction of World War II in PLP comes another soldier blog post. This is all about learning what the mentality of the soldiers was like back then. It also gives us students some information regarding what the time was like and what people were doing before the war. This blog post will include a diary entry written by me emulating a soldier I researched.

The soldier I researched is called Carl Thomas Edward Lee. I found him through searching through the archives of Canadian dead. I searched with the surname Lee trying to see if I could get an Asian soldier to research but found. I tried other Asian last names to avail so I just stuck with a Caucasian Lee. In his profile, I found many documents of him applying for the Air Force, medical exams, as well many letters informing his parents that he had died in the war.

This soldier was born in February 18th, 1922. He led quite a normal life with no injuries of any kind throughout his life before the war. He went to The University Of Toronto to study radios and how they worked. He was in the middle of his studies when the war broke out. As Canada joined the war, he signed up as a ground crewman for the Air force. He had hoped to be a radio technician as part of the ground team but he was instead trained as a navigator. This meant that he was part of the air crew that flew the warplanes and he was in charge of navigating and also the radios. He came out of training was assigned to bombers. This was late in the war at around late 1943. On January 28th 1944, him and his crew flew a Halifax bomber on a mission to bomb Berlin with other planes. They were shot down over northern Europe and bailed out but was captured. After that, no other records exist that Lee and his crew made it out of the Prisoner of War camp that they would be inevitably sent to if they were not just shot dead after being captured. Many letters were sent to the parents regarding their son’s status which was missing in action. His personal effects were sent home and will enforced after the time of which he was missing for became too long for him to have survived without making contact with Canada.

Below are some diary entries I wrote to show some understanding in what a soldier went through in World War II.