AlchoPwn
Public Service is my Motto.
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2017
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Wasn't there the famous case of a PoW taken prisoner in Normandy in 1944
Do you have a source for this?
Wasn't there the famous case of a PoW taken prisoner in Normandy in 1944
I remember reading about this guy some years ago - clearly not Tibetan, but it does indicate that distance and Nordic purity were no object when the Nazis felt the need. (It's worth pointing out, though, that citations are needed for the statments about his service in Normandy.)
View attachment 13705
That’s Yang Kyoungjong who had - to put it mildly - an “interesting” life, having fought for the Japanese, the Russians and the Germans!maximus otter
Do you have a source for this?
Wondered if I was conflating things with a half-remembered version of the Korean-in-Normandy story: then recalled where I'd read it in a specifically Tibetan context: in Cornelius Ryan's book, The Longest Day, (his history of the D-Day invasion seen via eye-witness accounts) a story about Allied interrogators who were questioning two Asian men captured in German uniforms. Ryan said that it was later learned that these men were Tibetans who were press ganged into the Red Army and were captured when the Germans invaded and were press ganged into the Wehrmacht.
Of course, Ryan might have got the story garbled too, and could have mis-assigned "Tibetan" to a FOAF story about the Korean - you can't rule it out - but generally he was a fairly diligent researcher in his WW2 histories. Wonder if Anthony Beevor - who covered the same ground as Ryan later, in somewhat more depth - picked this up too? Minded to go and check.
Re: Dead Tibetans in WW2 Berlin
Which, I understand, is the source of the second half of the name of the popular liquefied-cow-drink Bovril, the first half coming from the latin bos meaning ox.
The so-called "Tibetans" alleged to have fought for the Germans may well have been Kalmucks / Kalmyks.
This ethnic / cultural group was typically cited as being "Mongolian" via centuries of association / interaction with the Mongol Empire. However, these originally nomadic peoples trace back to ancestral homelands on the steppes of what was then and still is treated as the northeastern portion of Tibet rather than Mongolia. Even though strongly associated with Mongolia and "Mongols" by westerners, Kalmyks have always been a separate / distinct group.
By the time of the Soviet era Kalmyks were settled in Siberia and as far west as the western shores of the Caspian Sea. This placement in the Caucasus region matches the area from which many non-Russian Soviet citizens were drawn into German service.
During the pre-WW2 Soviet decades the suffered considerable oppression and relocations.
Kalmyks were among the many anti-Soviet ethnic / regional groups who willingly joined the German side in hopes of unseating the Soviet regime. The Kalmyks were particularly prominent among the cavalry regiments the German army established for central and eastern Asians who volunteered to aid in overthrowing Stalin's USSR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmyks