Band of Brothers 1x9 Full Reaction "Why We Fight"

Edward "Babe" Heffron: "If anyone ever tells you the Holocaust didn't happen, or that it wasn't as bad as they say, no, it was worse than they say. What we saw, what these Germans did, it was worse than you can possibly imagine."

Clay F

Huh, from what you were saying, did the blurb spoil the camp? Man, that sucks! It's probably best for reactors to avoid descriptions, trailers, etc in general, I guess. It's a tough watch, anyone with a heart, especially one as big as yours, would be distraught.

JXTN

One thing I especially like about this episode is that it addresses responsibility on the part of Germans in a way that makes people think. The question of who knew about and bore responsibility for the Holocaust has been debated ever since the war ended. A lot of that debate has been consumed by demagoguery, and this episode manages to avoid that. Hitler’s autobiography/political manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” in which he foretold what he would do if given power, was written twenty years before the events in this episode. He and the Nazis were elected to power thirteen years before the events in this episode. They passed the Nuremberg Race Laws legalizing anti-Semitic policies ten years before this episode. Kristallnacht, when Jewish businesses, schools, homes, and hospitals across Germany were attacked and destroyed, happened seven years before. The Germans watched all of this happen, and they watched as houses in their neighborhoods where Jewish people had lived suddenly became empty, and as Jewish doctors, tradesmen, lawyers, teachers, and business owners they had known for years were suddenly gone, along with their families. I’m old enough that all the adults in my world when I was growing up served in the war, including one who was with General Eisenhower when he toured Ohrdruf (part of the Buchenwald system). What these older relatives of mine would say is that, no, not every German (including soldiers) knew about every aspect of the Holocaust. However, if an adult German didn’t know that horrific things were happening to Jews in their country, especially after the early 1930s, it was because they didn’t want to.

Baron Imhoof

I'm sorry this episode was hard to watch. I remember seeing it for the first time, it just hits you. It stays with you afterwards a little, it did with me anyway. I love how much you care Imon. It's why you're so beautiful. I hope you had someone to comfort you after this episode, to hold you. You asked how the actors, the extras, and the director must have felt on set. I was reading on IMDB and in the trivia section it said, "Many of the extras playing concentration camp inmates were actually cancer patients undergoing treatment, hence their emaciated look." "The actors were deliberately kept away from the concentration camp set until the day they were actually due to film there so their reactions to what they were seeing were more honest." There was a light moment in this episode, kind of. The scene where Nixon finds out he's getting divorced and his wife is taking the house, the kid and his dog. He says "It's not even her dog. It's my dog! She's taking my dog!" At the start of the episode one of the men talked about how he and one of the Germans could have been friends. He said "We might've liked to fish, you know. He might've liked to hunt." There are two war movies I've been meaning to watch over the years about The Battle of Iwo Jima. The first is called "Flags of Our Fathers" which is told from the American side, and the second is called "Letters From Iwo Jima" which is told from the Japanese side. Both are directed by Clint Eastwood. I like the idea of seeing the war told from both sides. I've loved watching this series with you, I always love the talks at the end. Beautiful <3

Oh no problem, it's my pleasure. This has been a great. Also I might have been wrong, I looked into it further and that might have not been Tom Hanks. I don't want to pass on any wrong info so I wanted to correct myself, now I'm like 95% sure that's not Hanks.

Frankie H

Wow thats so cool thanks for continuing to give me some background info! I have really appreciated that! And yes this was just an extremely tough watch..

Imon_Snow

This episode is so hard to watch. The final episode is much easier. Also another Tom Hanks cameo, at 30:18-30:21 into the video Tom Hanks is the French soldier executing those Germans. They don't focus on his face and when they do it's in shadow but that's Hanks. Edit: Apparently it' not Tom Hanks. It's sort of a Band of Brothers urban legend, so many comments in other reaction videos say it's Tom Hanks. But it's not.

Frankie H