Thanks for that info, Wolfgang! God knows, German soldiers certainly might have found good reason to desert during various stages of WWII...

And so might other soldiers.

Soldiers know when they join up that it may involve killing, and dying...BUT no one wants to kill and die for no good reason.

When soldiers lose confidence in their high command and in the purposes of the orders they are following...then they are likely to desert in large numbers.

There are many, many reasons why people make the decision to join an army. They may do it to learn a trade, to toughen themselves up, because their father did it, for patriotic reasons, for security and 3 meals a day, to "save the world" (ha!), to fight a perceived enemy, to earn a daily wage, to escape a ghetto or a bad family situation, because they're at loose ends, unemployed, don't know what else to do at the time....there must be a thousand reasons why people would join the armed forces.

But...when they lose confidence in the whole situation then they may decide it wasn't such a good idea after all! Other jobs, you can quite. You can walk away. But when you're in the armed forces, you can't just quit. They won't LET you. Accordingly, people desert.

And I don't blame them one bit. Who the hell would want a job that he can't voluntarily LEAVE if he finds out that he hates the job?????????????????????? Sounds like slavery to me, not like a real job at all.