War Crimes

Thanks for sharing these stories Friedrich and PzJgr--I think they needed to be told.

I also thank GOD, that the people here can look at something like this objectively.

Very sad that this had to happen--or rather--DID happen.

A friend of mine in living in Washington recetly told me about a story that he was told by a G.I. who fought from Normandy through the Battle of the Bulge.

He and many men in his unit were tired of all their friends and comrades getting killed. One day they took around 100 German prisoners somewhere near Bastogne ot somewhere in that region--(I forget exactly where he said)

Anyway--he and his unit captured around 100 German soldiers and started to march them to the rear to a POW cage that had been set-up. One of the Germans had a handgrenade that had not been found by the G.I.s when they were searched.

This German soldier pulled out the Grenade and had tossed it near three G.I.s. The grenade exploded and outright killed two of the three G.I.s the third was seriously wounded.

The G.I.s then proceeded to shoot in the direction that the man was who threw the grenade. They shot and kept on shooting until the entire group of Germans had been killed.

The third G.I. died from his wounds a few days later.

This was told to my friend Frank Mills who works for a lumber company in Washington. Frank was enraged at the callousness of thie vet to tell of this. many of Franks relatives had served in the various branches of the Wehrmacht.

Frank is a close relative of a Panzer Ace and RKT--Ernst Barkmann of "Das Reich" Pz Div fame. Frank is also close friends with my best German friend--RKT Remy Schrijnen. If you think I have vet contacts--this guy has quite a few as well.

 

Well, my grandfather also commanded a "regiment" during the battle of Berlin, and he describes this battle as the 'very hell on Earth'. There, the Russians, with flammethrowers cleared a small building which was full of 11-13-year-old Hitlerjugend. Those kids were nearly all burnt alive (around thirty five...). Also, the regiment had severe losses during the battle, including many wounded. Just 8% of the prissoners wounded survived. All the rest were killed with bayonets by the Soviets. I don't have to say that many nurses, mothers, grandmothers, children (including some of the remaining Hitlerjugend, boys and girls) were raped some 30 times and then shot... The very German SS did not help either. There was a colonel hanged from a light post with a saign which said: 'I am a damned traitor, who tried to leave the city and surrender'

Fortunately, one of the very few prissoners wounded was my grandfather. On April 30th 1945 he was retreating his "troops" (you can't call them like that) from the Reds, when a bloody Soviet sniper shot at him; his left eye was blown up, and then, a second shot pierced his throat at the very middle. He agonised a few hours until his suboordinate, in charge of the regiment (a Stabsfeldwebel) surrendered to the Soviets. Then, a Russian doctor, Nadeijda Strovovich made him surgery and saved my grandfather's life. After that, when he was strong again, he jumped out of a train heading to Siberia and ran away.

I think this horrible story can show how bad and evil and how good the man can be.

 

Steve:

I don't think anyone was implying crimes weren't committed by all sides during the war. When you have the sheer numbers of men brought together fighting for long periods of time I’m sure you will have isolated cases of crimes being perpetrated. That is not a brush, however, that I think the Allied war movement can be painted with. It is those cases in which crimes are the norm, or worse, mandated from above that are truly disturbing. I think you have a different situation when whole social processes are devised in order to facilitate murder. Perhaps this is why I believe that the Allied cause in WW2 can be said to be a just cause in which there might have been a bad apple or two and the Axis cause to be an evil movement with the occasional good apple. I do understand that things that seem pretty black or white when stared at from a distance can seem gray when viewed from up close. I also must say that I have just begun my study into WW2(I’m a doctoral student in Economics and I’ve just started a serious interest into WW2 a year ago) and I may not have all the facts that many of you reading this may have. If anyone disagrees, please let me know. Here is a passage i came across in my readings which i find particularly poignant:

"A legend has grown up that this young man (ie, the US Marine)is a killer, he takes no prisoners, and gives no quarter. This is partly true, but the reason is not brutality, not just vindictive remembrance of Pearl Harbor. He kills because in the jungle he must, or be killed. this enemy stalks him, and he stalks the enemy as if each were a hunter tracking a bear cat. Quite frequently you hear marines say: I wish we were fighting the Germans. They are human beings like us. Fighting against them must be like athletic performance-matching your skill against someone you know is good. Germans are misled, but at least they react like men. The Japs are like animals. Against them you have to learn a whole new set of physical reactions. You have to get used to their animal stubbornness and tenacity. they take to the jungle as if they had been bred there, and like some beasts you never see them until they are dead." -Pacific Fleet Admiral William F. Halsey

 

In my opinion the best we can do is not drag it to the national level and say "everybpdy from this country was bad" and "everybody from this country is good".

I've read all the stories above and I am quite at loss to say anything except that it makes me very depressed. I can imagine the situations and I can imagine the reactions. I cannot say how I would have reacted - hopefully I will never have to face that test.

It should also teach us a lesson about wars. Keep them short. Better - don't have any at all.

 

On this atrocities I quote Hitler and many other persons who said it:" The victor is always right" or something like that.

The Russians for instance had their concentration camps and in the 1930´s Stalin even made artificial hunger to Ukraine as he needed money for industrialization, well, he did hate tha b--tards anayway, which was another excuse.Thus killing millions of people there. Nobody cared.And later on the Katyn experience, where loads of Polish officers were killed in the name of Stalin.Also if we compare the Russian system with German concentration camps, I am quite sure the Russian soldiers were not at all surprised to see them. The USSR was as bad at least.If we put Russia in Germany´s place in 1945 I bet there would be the same kind of effect on camps and we´d be looking at the Russian camp atrocities films these days.

Don´t know what the camps for Japanese or close related civilians were like in the US during WW2 but probably not close to boarding houses? Has anybody read on those, I´d like to hear.
And yes, the japs were quite nasty at the allied soldiers in the POW camps, I think.
Thanks for the tip Steve, one day I´ll read more on the pacific war.

There are some incidents I´d like to bring up here:

For instance as K. Meyer and LAH in Greece defeated the British, to my knowledge the British were really overwhelmed by the good treatment the waffen-ss men gave their wounded after their surrender.Of course with minor losses and being victorious it´s easy to be kind, but anyway this example shows that they were professionals.

The SS was rough on its own perpetrators. They usually were put to war court.If you had an order then it was ok to destroy etc, but without permission you probably ended up shot dead after a short trial.
One example on a bigger scale.
On 5th April the Finns were attacking in the Salla front, with two companies of SS Nord as flanks. The Russians artillery soon started to fire, weather turned lousy as well, but the attack was advancing. Except for SS companies. They pulled back wihout permission. the Finns were annihilated without support from the flanks.
The Finnish general asked General Dietl for explanation. He got the answer next week. The company commanders were questioned and executed at dawn...

The allied invasion was not just a happy thing for the French. In one book it said that during the summer 1944 there were a couple of hundred rapes by the allied ( US mostly ) of which 50-60 were hanged after trial. Don´t have the actual figures but these are close.

I think the roughest men were the patrol men for Finland and Russia, the latter being called "desants".Not that I would say the British or US commandos were worse but they had to do quite a different thing. As well comparing to the atricities at the front or camps.
These were men who were sent behind the lines, collect information on troop movements, possibly destroy some targets. They lived in every day danger of being found and being shot, as they were doing illegal business. They were also meant to cause havoc among civilians, and all the houses were burnt and families they found were killed quietly, with a knife preferably.Women, children, animals etc.Rather horrible and brutal action.

 

Kai has made some very good points. There was a topic I started about examples of "good" treatment given to the enemy. The Western allies were given overall good treatment by the Waffen SS. The only exception made by my grandfather was when they encountered atrocities which was only once. This is a behavior picked up from the east. As for the flying firing squads, they did exist and one squad even tried to string up my grandfather's unit (2 StuGs, 4 halftracks and some trucks). Needless to say, they were dealt with expediciously. SS fighting SS. Imagine that.

 

Kai:

Here is a useful resource on Japanese Internment camps in the US

http://www.fatherryan.org/hcompsci/

 

Well, as I have said before, there were standards for the war. You cannot compare the war in the East and the war in the West at all. There were different standars for fighting in every front of the war, which depended on the political, ideologic and military circumstances at the moment. By example, the war in Africa was tremendously Knightly in which any side commited war crimes. It was the opposite, the wounded were taken and attended and the dead were buried, didn't matter the uniform they wore.
The war in the East was the fight for the survival of two nations. There could be only a winner and a defeated. Both sides fought like lions in a cage. Obviously with any method available. This quote is some kind funny, but true: In love and war, everything is allowed.
And in the West it was obvious that war crimes were not being intended by any side, but happened because of circumstances and because (talking about the German soldiers) had been trained and hardened in the East, where atrocities were matter of everyday...