In the spring of 1945, U.S. soldier George Leitmann, part of the 286th Combat Engineer Battalion, witnessed terrible atrocities in Germany as World War II neared its end. During his mission, he encountered the aftermath of the brutal killings of young boys by the Waffen SS, who had coerced them into fighting against American forces. This traumatic experience, depicting the extreme cruelty of the regime, has left an indelible mark on Leitmann's life as he tries to process the unimaginable events he witnessed during the liberation of Europe from Nazi tyranny.
We were coming to a suburb. We stopped, he recalled almost 80 years later. And there were 15, 20 kids, all boys. They were 10 to 12 years old. They were dead.
Apparently, Waffen SS had come through and rounded up kids from that age and handed each one a Panzerfaust and told them to fire at the first American tank they saw.
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