Band of Brothers 1×9 Reaction

24 thoughts on "Band of Brothers 1×9 Reaction"

1. I’ve seen this series a few times (and have been one of the people that have been anticipating you reacting to this series for years,so thank you!), but not until watching along with you guys did I get to interpret the looks exchanged by Nixon and the red dress lady both times differently. When they first have that interaction the red dress lady challenged Nixon with a dirty/disgusted look because of the false superiority she had over him. This time around I saw something new in Nixon’s stare in their second interaction. I saw a glare. A glare that mirrored that which the red dress lady gave him. I agree in that it’s like it was him asking “how could you live with yourself knowing this is what your husband was doing.” But this time I saw a look of disgust from Nixon that I found mirrored red dress lady’s stare down in their first interaction.
   It’s interesting seeing something new at every rewatch.

2. German civilians definitely knew something horrible was going on, research says the only thing they may not have known about was the big gas chambers. But Hitler and the nazi regime being in power already for over a decade they had been airing out anti-Jewish articles and posters in the media and around town. They may not have known exactly what was being done to the victims but knew it was horrible, but chose to look the other way and not ask questions. but that being said, if you actually spoke out against the nazi regime and its disgusting atrocities, you and your entire family were dead. shits fucked either way but bless those brave souls who actually stood up for whats right and had to pay the price. utterly heartbreaking all around.

   great reaction, this is one of those episodes that stick with you and really drives home the horror of it all. like Calvin said, “it’s an important story.”

3. I might be wrong but I believe the Soviets has liberated Auschwitz earlier in the year and the Allied government’s top officials knew about the camps then but I don’t think the intel was shared down the line so while some heard rumors of work camps, they weren’t really informed of what was actually happening in the camps. As for the German citizens. Of course anyone near the camps had to know and the people in more populated areas knew Jewish people were being rounded up and taken away. Whether they knew it was to death camps the poorer of German civilians may have not known. Some of the more rural small towns where there may not have been any Jewish people, and nowhere near camps were more likely to not know. There were some acts of rebellion that unfortunately got put down quickly when some from the German Army, not SS, found out and tried to rebel because not everyone was aware of what the Final Solution was. All of this was done because of propaganda and fear, that’s how quickly man turned to monster. Some “patriotic speeches” given when everyone was struggling and a finger pointed at a tangible scapegoat was all it took. That why it’s important we remember how this came to be. Some actually want to censor Holocaust education and we can’t allow that to happen. My father said never trust someone who wants to censor or take away your ability to learn. They are taking away your power.

4. And though it wasn’t to the extent of the German camps, lets not forget about the Japanese American internment camps that the US put into place, many US citizens of Japanese descent died in those camps simply because they had Japanese ancestors and weren’t trusted by the US population

5. Without a doubt most of the German population likely knew or at least had an idea of what was happening but even if they didn’t like it, they couldn’t do much about it, if they had spoken up or acted then they and their families would end up dead or in the camps too.

6. Gotta remember folks, if we were all in germany at the time its more than likely we would have acted the same and gone along just like the german population. It takes real bravery and courage to stand up to tyranny knowing it will most likely lead to your death.

7. The guys who shot those two prisoners at 8:22 are French resistance soldiers. They’re enacting revenge

8. The Russian soldier shooting the prisoners is Tom Hanks.

9. I hate the narrative of people saying the Germans didn’t know. I’m Belgian, and my grandparents all knew what the Germans were doing. When you visit the camps in Germany, Austria, Poland, or Czechia you instantly realize that people had to know. These camps weren’t in the middle of nowhere. They were just outside towns… And even if you live in a small town everyone knows the butcher had an affair with the wife of the mayor… Don’t tell me people didn’t know there were extermination camps. Not to mention the Nazis took control in 1931, 15 years before this, and systematically expelled the Jewish people. From refusing service, to Kristallnacht, to book burning, to the Hitler Jugend … but the camps, nope, suddenly nobody knew. It’s weird how many people use the “not all Germans”, which is true, but the nazi party was the biggest party in Germany, and the second largest group were people who just didn’t do anything about it. It was a tiny minority of Germans who actively fought against the nazi regime. The only Germans who are hardly to blame are the ones fighting in Normandy, those were 15-16 year old children, who were babies when Hitler came to power and 10-11 years old when the war started.

   1. The “we didn’t know” narrative falls on death ears for me because those camps required a lot of German soldiers and officers to maintain. They would have been part of the community’s associated with the camps. A lot of people knew something was going on but looked the other way.

      1. if they had said or acted against what was happening then they and their families would either be killed or ended up in the camos as well, not saying that keeping silent is a good thing but they didn’t have much choice

10. I’m saying this because that’s how I act sometimes to cope. I was conditioned from having younger siblings to put on brave face during rough times. It feels really wrong at the time, but its better then having a breakdown.

11. Austin, aaron seemed to be coping with it by laughing during the discussion. I don’t think he knew what to say or how to respond so he laughed it off. I don’t think he was unaware of the significance of the story, just that’s how he processed it.

12. Witold Pilecki was polish spy who in 1940 got himself captured to infiltrate the Auschwitz concentration camp, created rresistance group and reported what was going on in concentration camps to the allied forces but it was so bad they couldn’t believe in the beginning.

13. Yeah I believe Russia lost almost 30 million soldiers and Civilians combined during the war while the U.S. lost around 450k. Not saying we didn’t lose a lot but there is a reason why it’s said the war was won by U.S. industry and Russian Blood.

    1. British intelligence was also a key factor in the Allies defeating the Axis powers.

       The massive scope of WWII is mindboggling. The amount of deaths/casualties Russia and China sustained in WWII is abhorrent to levels that haven’t been seen in human history while United States production of everything during WWII was something that no nation in human history has done.

    2. I believe the saying was more or less: “WW2 was won with American steel, British brains and Russian blood”

    3. Not Russians, but the Soviets. There is a huge difference.

14. I’ve heard they used cancer patients who volunteered to play the part of the Jews in the camp so it would look authentic for how thin and malnourished they looked.

15. Aaron felt so out of place in the discussion lmao. Talking about ww2 like it was just a tv show is so weird

    1. I just finished the video and I did not get the impression that Aaron was “”talking about ww2 like it was just a tv show” at all. It was a great discussion and Aaron did not feel out of place to me.

    2. It is a TV show though, a very good one but still. It’s dangerous when we get our history education from entertainment, no matter how good it’s made, you cannot treat it as a documentary. For example, you never see Americans executing Germans, in this episode, it was the French soldiers who did that. Same with how it’s implied the allies didn’t know about the concentration camps, even though there were movies made about it during the war (To be or not to be from 1942 for example)

       1. I wouldn’t quite say it’s entertainment. It is a series based off of books from first hand accounts of easy company.

    3. I don’t think it was out of place. Aaron was simply reflecting on the absurdity of it all and sometimes people react by chuckling in disbelief despite knowing that these events really happened.