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Could I hate the nazis even more???

Discussion in 'Concentration, Death Camps and Crimes Against Huma' started by Radar4077, Sep 29, 2010.

  1. Sturmpioniere

    Sturmpioniere Member

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    I know this isn't about the Holocaust, but I'm almsot finished reading a book about a German soldier on the Eastern Front. He mentions sitting in a foxhole with his buddy with their MG42 when its all quiet, but the Russians have mortars, snipers, and artillery. They can't get up or else the sniper will kill them. Well, his buddy wants to keep looking up over the foxhole to see what the Russians are doing. So the author barely creeps and all of a sudden a sniper bullet whizzes right past his head. After he gets down his buddy has a huge gaping hole in his-explosive round. His buddy creeped up right behind him when he did so also. He also mentions of how his little outpost holds out with a 20mm AA gun and an 88 and how they finally get blown up and the next day around 50 Russian T-34's push them out of their outpost, he mentions how they get ran over and shot up. On the topic of the Holocaust, the SS had some jacked up people in its ranks, thats for sure. However, they were a hell of a fighting force. I don't know if the frontline soldiers were in some kind of rotation where they were on the front and then served in the death camps, but I do remember reading in Masters Of Death that Rhodes said something like how any soldiers in the Einsatzgruppen enjoyed doing their jobs were immediately sent back to the home front, and that a lot of men in the Einsatzgruppen committed suicide or were sent to mental asylums because they couldn't stand killing innocents.
     
  2. Nicnac

    Nicnac Member

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    Having a belief that those you are abusing are not human, and are to be treated any way you please and disposed of helps too.
     
  3. Mehar

    Mehar Ace

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    Some frontline troops would be rotated into death camps (including Wehrmacht in one case) but I believe this was only in the case of those who were injured and unfit for the front yet still of some use. A wounded man would be given guard duty in a camp and a healthy man would be given his place on the front. I forget the name but there was a camp liberated by US forces towards the end of the war, the unit that liberated the camp was so horrified by what they saw they formed firing squads to deal with the guards. This specific camp had men who were rotated from the frontlines among them. The event itself is very controversial even to this day, really kicking myself for forgetting the name!

    I wouldn't doubt the suicide part though, later into the war letters sent home from the camp would begin detailing some of the things that were going on. There was a misconception among posted guards that if they were to ask for a transfer they would be punished or killed for mutiny. In reality, those who actually asked for transfers were given them since under German law the camps system was illegal hence no action against these soldiers could be taken. It doesn't really justify what these soldiers did persay, but it gives some context into how people felt and perhaps the justifications they used to make things seem ok. This was addressed in the first chapter of To The Death's Head True for those who want to read more about it.
     
  4. Spartanroller

    Spartanroller Ace

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  5. brndirt1

    brndirt1 Saddle Tramp

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    Well, "wiki" isn't completely wrong here. But there being a "firing squad" at Dachau for the guards is a myth. The SS guards at Dachau were not all killed by any stretch of the imagination, since no less than 130 of them survived to be both interrogated and imprisoned themselves. The largest single incident was the so called "coal yard incident" where American soldiers opened fire on SS guards in a group. It isn’t clear if the Americans started firing thinking the SS were attempting to rush them, or escape, or if the firing started the SS guards running around and more being shot at.

    No one with any credibility believes there were too many more than 50 victims and the absolute maximum possible might be 80. This is based on the official investigation of the events and subsequent studies. An official investigation that occurred quite rapidly. Indeed the main documented events were killing of 5 SS guards at "the death train", 17 SS at "the coal yard" and 10-17 SS killed at "Tower B". Isolated killings of 1-2 here and there are not well documented but most say these amount to 10 more, perhaps. (For example see Marcuse's Legacies of Dachau).

    Some people with no credibility claim every last SS soldier/guard was killed by firing squads which is thoroughly wrong and based on very poor research and no evidence at all. That is false since numerous sources discuss what became of the surviving SS guards from Dachau. The official report even notes that not all Germans were killed and other reports note where the SS prisoners that came out of Dachau itself were transferred to for imprisonment themselves in other camps. In the largest incident, the "coal yard incident", there were around 60 SS soldiers involved, of which 17 were killed.

    The shooting was ordered stopped before the majority were even wounded. Those who were wounded were taken to the infirmary for treatment while the uninjured were taken elsewhere to protect them from the Jewish prisoners who had begun to attack them with shovels and such. Not only were not all of them killed, even if one or two men did initiate fire deliberately, the other Americans could plausibly have joined in because the prisoners began running away or towards them as they claimed, moreover the commanders stopped the shooting in time to prevent most from being shot. The firing lasted for only very few seconds.

    If this was a deliberate or ordered firing squad attempt to kill every last German guard it was not very successful now was it! General Eisenhower, as overall Supreme Commander took responsibility for the shootings of the guards. Consequently the members of the US Army, both officers and enlisted who took part in it were punished (lightly admittedly). I think loss of rank/pay grades and a short stint in the stockade for a few of the more blatant offenders.
     
  6. lwd

    lwd Ace

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    My impression also was that some of the guards were killed by the former inmates.
     

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