My grandfather fought in WW2. Yes for the "bad" side.
He wasn't exactly supporting the nazis or anything. Before the war he owned a farm and he would often hide Jewish slave workers in his barn and secretly feed them out of view of the nazi guards. His ethic on the matter was if you didn't get fed right and treated well you wouldn't work hard. But in a nice way.

He also lived somewhere near a death camp. With some vague idea on what was happening he approached an old friend, now nazi. Him "I'm not blind, I see the trucks. I can smell, I know theres smoke. What the fuck is going on there?". He was told he better shut up and pretend nothing ever happened or him and his family would be 'taken care of'. So just a normal hardworking farmer with strong work ethic and human decency, but also wanting to look after himself and his family and his country.

He was East Prussian, so when the war got going he was pretty much on the front. At some point the Russians came and they all evacuated, with great loss.

While he was a soldier he had a few interesting tales, from what he's told me. Once a grenade or mine exploded near him. He's still got the shrapnel in his eye-lid.

Once he got chucked in an American concentration camp. They didn't feed him for a week or two. People started dying. Then they gave them some peaches or something. Apparently many more died from burst stomachs or something trying to eat after such a large fast. He started slow and made it. He didn't really escape I think, the war just kinda ended and he gradually went south from job to job until he settled down near the Swiss border.

Sorry for length and hope I haven't confused or omitted anything.
(riedacher_bertram, Fri 24 Mar 2006, 6:04, Reply)