The Man Who Didn't Shoot Hitler (1918)

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You'll be ready to play almost instantly as installing and registration only takes a few minutes, and you don't need a super powerful computer to enjoy the game. Raid's community is super active with 15 million players in the game worldwide already, and people talking about it on YouTube, Reddit, and forums, so there's a lot of help getting started. You can start playing right now by hitting the link in the description below. Make sure to do it there to get 50,000 free silver and a free epic champion as part of the new player program. When a British soldier spared Hitler's life. World War I. In September of 1938, the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain traveled to meet with Adolf Hitler for discussions at his private mountain retreat, Berghof, in the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden. It was hoped they would prevent Europe's then seemingly inevitable descent into war. Whilst he was there, he noticed a painting by Fortunino Mantagna, an Italian artist famous for his portrayals of World War I. The painting depicted British soldiers in the aftermath of a battle at the Menin Crossroads in 1914. In the forefront, one soldier was shown to be carrying a wounded man. Hitler explained the compassionate soldier was a man by the name of Henry Tandy, and he claimed that he owed him his life. Twenty years beforehand, on September 28, 1918, at the end of a day of horrific fighting at Marquand in northern France, a wounded and weary Hitler, then a lance corporal, had wandered out of the battle and Tandy raised his gun and took aim, but was unable to shoot at the wounded man and instead let him go. The Fuhrer proclaimed, Hitler later saw the newspaper article depicting Tandy receiving a medal and was able to put a Much later, when he learned about the Mantagna's painting which had been commissioned in 1923 by Tandy's regiment, the Green Howards, Hitler requested a copy and obtained it in 1937. After explaining the incident to Chamberlain, Hitler asked if he would kindly contact Tandy when he returned to the UK to thank him for his merciful act of kindness. Whether or not Hitler's account of this meeting with Tandy is accurate is still debated by historians. There is no evidence that Chamberlain attempted to contact Tandy and it has not been possible to confirm whether Hitler even fought at Marquand on the day in question, especially since according to papers at the Bavarian State Archive, Hitler had been on leave between the 25th and 27th of September 1918. One thing that is known for certain, though, is that Private Henry Tandy was a real British soldier. In fact, he was the most decorated British private in World War I, and he led a life well worth remembering regardless of the veracity of the Hitler incident. Dr. David Johnson, Tandy's biographer, said about Hitler's claim, if he was going to have his life spared by a British soldier, who better than a famous war hero who had won a Victoria Cross and a Distinguished Conduct Medal in a matter of weeks. With his godlike self-perception, the story added to Hitler's own myth that he had been spared for something greater, that he was somehow chosen. His story embellished his reputation nicely. Tandy was born in 1891 in Warwickshire, the son of a former soldier. He enlisted in the army himself in August 1910 when he joined up with the Green Howard's Regiment. He spent the next few years serving in Guernsey and South Africa, meaning that he already had extensive experience as a soldier by the time World War I broke out in 1914. He fought at several of the most infamous battles of the Great War, including Ypres, the Somme, and Passchendaele. The most distinguished part of Tandy's wartime career came in the latter half of 1918, where over the course of just a few weeks he performed multiple acts of gallantry that were deemed worthy of medals. The first of these was the Distinguished Conduct Medal, which he was awarded for his actions on the 28th of August at the Second Battle of Cambrai. Tandy, then serving with the 5th Battalion of the Duke Wellington's Regiment, was placed in command of a reserve bombing party. When he realized that the advance parties were being held up, Tandy, along with two of his men, made a daring dash across no-man's-land, bombed an enemy trench, and took 20 German soldiers prisoner. Two weeks later, Tandy's battalion was fighting at Haverencourt, where he again outdid himself, rescuing several wounded men and leading another bombing party into action. This time he was awarded the Military Medal. The greatest honor of Tandy's career though came in December of 1918, when he was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award in the British honor system, for actions undertaken at Marquand on the 28th of September 1918, the same day that he allegedly spared Hitler. Tandy's platoon had been attempting to take a crossing over the Canal de Saint-Quentin when it came under heavy machine gun fire and was unable to progress. Tandy crawled forward into the village, discovered the position of the gun, and led a team of men into a nearby house from where they were able to take it out. When the platoon reached the canal, they found that the bridge was damaged. Tandy, once again whilst under heavy fire, crept out onto the bridge and replaced its missing planks, thereby allowing the rest of the men to make the crossing. Later in the day, Tandy and eight other men were surrounded by Germans. The situation was desperate and it appeared they would be overwhelmed, but Tandy, despite being severely wounded by this point, led a bayonet charge strong enough to drive 37 Germans back to his company line. He refused to leave the field of battle until it was clear that the fight had been won. Tandy was discharged from the army on March 14th, 1919, but he immediately re-enlisted, this time with the Duke of Wellington's 3rd Battalion. He continued to serve in the British military until 1926, when he was discharged for the final time. In his civilian life, Tandy carried on serving his community by working as a police sergeant at the Standard Triumph Motor Company, a role which he had for 38 years. Tandy had been made aware of his possible connection with Adolf Hitler, but although he did acknowledge that he had spared wounded soldiers on September 28th, 1918, he gave conflicting answers when asked about it. In the August 1939 edition of the Coventry Herald, he was quoted by saying, according to them, I've met Adolf Hitler. Maybe they're right, but I can't remember him. A year later, after he had witnessed the horrors of one of Germany's bombing raids over Coventry, he spoke with a journalist who asked him about Hitler directly, to which he responded, If only I had known what he would turn out to be. When I saw all the people and women and children he had killed and wounded, I was sorry to God I let him go.