Why did he order a bunch of children and elderly to fight a 100% unwinnable battle? What did that accomplish?

>>17805241 (OP)
Millions of dead communists

>>17805241 (OP)
The eastern parts of Germany had already been exterminated. By that point civilians realized it was fight or die

>>17805241 (OP)
He had a mental breakdown and decided that Germany would die with him.

>>17805259
But most of the German civilians surrendered and didn’t fight to the death. It was in fact almost impossible to find anymore volunteers which is why they were conscripted.

>>17805241 (OP)
You could replace your image with Stalin and your sentiment would have even more applicability.

>>17805269
Stalin didn’t conscript kids though. he did conscript prisoners from the gulag and old men (up to 50 years old) though.

>>17805267
The civilians and soldiers on the Western front yes.
The Eastern parts of the country were mostly annihilated.
What became the DDR was the middle ground where Soviet and Western troops met each other. Truman ordered the Western troops to withdraw from the territory creating a communist-aligned buffer state.
Berlin was repopulated and rebuilt after the war as it was partially under Western observation

>>17805269
>Stalin conscripted kids and elderly
Show me a single image.

>>17805241 (OP)
Obviously the war to preserve the Third Reich was unwinnable, but any possible effort to slow the Soviet advance is why Germany exists today. Western Europe as a whole probably wouldn't exist if it had been taken by the Russians instead of Britain and America

>>17805241 (OP)
Because if they lost those elderly and children would be dead anyways, it would be better for them to go down fighting than be raped by the soviets. You could say him sending tons of Volksturm to the west and not the east was sort of a last act of mercy, both he and his commanders knew they would surrender the moment things got iffy and at least if they surrendered to the allied forces they might be spared the red terror. The allies then did things like Operation Keelhaul and selling prisoners to the soviets, and given the findings of the Maschke committee we know what happened to those that ended up in Soviet captivity even if it was in the post-war years.

>>17805241 (OP)
He thought that they deserved it for not fighting hard enough for him.

>>17805259
Where are the bomes of this alleged east German extermination?

>>17805517
Under pierogi restaurants

>>17805332
>Western Europe as a whole probably wouldn't exist if it had been taken by the Russians instead of Britain and America

>>17805313