Absolutely right, Benjamin. I feel so strongly about this, even now the bitterness remains in me. You put it well. I am bitter that our heroes are spat upon by their own people in the very Fatherland they fought for. Merely because they lost, and because some of their countrymen have given them an evil name. What on earth was it all for? I am talking about the common soldier here, not the evil ones soiling their ranks.
It seems ironic that the evil characters from our past are in fact not forgotten, but much talked of , and are deservedly now figures of hate. As a result, and perhaps to some degree due to a certain misguided Nazi 'glamour', their memory is continued in our times and sadly, in a few cases, revered. I suppose it's important to remember them, as their misdeeds must serve as a warning to present-day society. But these are the ones who should be reviled, not the rest of us.
The common soldier was little different in many ways from his Allied counterpart, but there might as well be a chasm between us. I live in England now, amid the people I fought against, yet with an English grandfather who fought in WWI. I am allowed to be proud of my grandfather, to honour his memory, in public too. But there's nothing here or anywhere else for my (past) self and the Kameraden I watched die in the snows of Russia. So many of us had no graves, even. We were absorbed into that foreign soil, thousands of miles from our land. We, the Unknown Soldiers, have no recognition and no honour.
No wonder we are back in our numbers, desperate for identity, for some kind of recognition. We have already been annihilated once. The war we fight now is against obscurity. I need no-one's thanks. What I need is understanding and remembrance. Yes, and prayers too, if that's even possible.