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On September 1, 1939 -- the very first morning of World War II -- the workers of the Polish Post Office in Danzig did not just wait for the invasion. They fought. For three days. Against the entire German Wehrmacht.

On June 6, 1944, the German troops defending the Normandy beaches were among the most battle-hardened soldiers in the world -- but they had almost entirely gained that experience fighting on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. The 21st Panzer Division, which threw the single armored counterattack against the British beaches on D-Day, had been fighting in Africa and Italy before Normandy. The average German defender had survived Russian winters and seen horrors on the Eastern Front that made the Normandy landings look almost orderly.

The average age of German soldiers defending the Atlantic Wall on June 6, 1944, was approximately 17 years old. Many of the older, experienced German soldiers had been transferred to the Eastern Front after the Allied invasion of Normandy was misidentified as a diversion. The youngest confirmed German defender on D-Day was a 14-year-old flak helper named Hans Hantschar, captured by American forces on Utah Beach.