[Windracer]

Josef Wende was a spy

[Padraig Flaherty]

He must've cost the lives of others!

[muzaqman]

Man, he was just a kid!

[Susan]

Poor bugger.

[pokerplay]

alas a repost but an interesting one.

[William May]

Would like to know the backstory.

[William May]

OK. The backstory.
Wende, who was Polish but of German extraction, and another Polish citizen, had been drafted into the Wehrmacht. They were sent across the Moselle river, wearing civilian clothes, in an effort to reconnoiter the American lines. They were caught by a U.S. sergeant, who took them into custody, and turned them over to the military police. They were found guilty of spying, and sentenced to death.
This sentence MAY have been connected to the shootings of 50 RAF aircrew who had escaped from Stalag Luft IV, (With an additional 50 guys who got away, I believe there were 100 or so British who escaped. This was the so-called "Great Escape" in WWII.) Those 50 men were accused of "attempted sabotage" by the Germans who captured them in civilian clothes after their escape. Normally, they would have been returned to their POW camp and given time in the "Cooler" for escaping, but in this case, Hitler was angry, and decreed they should all be shot. Only 50 of them actually were, but the results were bad for Germans who were captured after that point, as you see here.
Apparently, Wende and the other guy never actually did anything, and no deaths of U.S. Forces resulted, but the interpretation was that they were spies, and apparently because of the executions of the British fliers from Stalag Luft IV, the decision was made that they had to die.
The British did an intensive investigation of the RAF flier murders, and nearly all the Germans involved in that episode were hung or shot. I remember seeing evidence photos where the Gestapo man involved in one murder was taken to the place he had killed the British flier he was directed to execute, and had to show the British the exact spot where he killed the guy, and had to show how he told him to exit the Gestapo car, and positioned himself behind the flier to shoot him in the back of the head. He was with the car he used, and there were several British military and police officials in the scene where he reenacted the killing. Can't have been too comfortable for him, but I guess he got what he had coming, in the end. No telling how many people the guy had killed or sent to concentration camps as a Gestapo agent. I don't think the British cared one way or the other. They just were going to see that everyone involved with killing RAF personnel was put to death.

[Konamama]

Originally Posted by Padraig Flaherty ↗

He must've cost the lives of others!

Of course —let’s assume that without looking into any of the historical background! Unthinking shouting out of things gives depth to the thread.

[K53]

He was only a boy

[William May]

Originally Posted by K53 ↗

He was only a boy

Yes. And he wouldn't have had to die. If the Germans hadn't killed the British prisoners, nothing probably would have happened to him, except going into POW captivity.
Similar stuff happened after the Malmedy Massacre in December, 1944. When the U.S. troops found out about it, they took no German prisoners for a few days. Just shot them as soon as they surrendered.
My Dad, who fought from D-Day in 1944 to Feb 7 in 1945, when he was captured, had a lot of stories about things like this that happened. If the Germans had been smart, they would have backed off the "tough-guy" routine, seeing as the war was already lost for them. But there was always some asshole fanatic that did things, that resulted in the deaths of a lot of other people on both sides, just because of the circumstances.