Posted on 05/05/2015 11:41:26 AM PDT by Impala64ssa
You mean like the safety of our prisoners who were in the care of the SS at Malmedy? The U.S. soldiers whom the SS machine gunned to death with their hands tied behind their backs?
L
Worked with an ex Army lifer whose dad was a Regular Army mustanger officer. The dad saw a colonel order the execution of a couple of dozen Wehrmacht peons during the drive towards the Rhine.
The Americans and British did not make murdering prisoners an art form like the Russians, Germans and Japanese did but it still happened sometimes.
“Did it protect those prisoners at Malmedy?”
No, but it did protect tens of thousands of other POWs whom Hitler and Himmler wanted to exterminate, but the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine objected strenuously enough to stop in most cases. Malmedy was one of many such exceptions along with the executions of the POWs in the Gredat Escape, the Commandoes Order, and the Night and Fog Decree to mention a few.
NAZI Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union fought each other without observing such laws about the protection of POWs, and you should see the horrors suffered by the Soviet POWs located in the same POW camps as the Americans and the British. Next time you feel vengeful, ask yourself how you would like our POWs to be treated like the Soviet POWs in WWII.
No, but it did protect tens of thousands of other POWs whom Hitler and Himmler wanted to exterminate, but the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine objected strenuously enough to stop in most cases. Malmedy was one of many such exceptions along with the executions of the POWs in the Gredat Escape, the Commandoes Order, and the Night and Fog Decree to mention a few.
NAZI Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union fought each other without observing such laws about the protection of POWs, and you should see the horrors suffered by the Soviet POWs located in the same POW camps as the Americans and the British. Next time you feel vengeful, ask yourself how you would like our POWs to be treated like the Soviet POWs in WWII.
Read the article.
My response: So what?
War is hell.
My father had a few stories about liberating the Italian POW camps. And how there was an understanding of how normal people react in abnormal situations.
I am trying to figure out the controversy here.
Thirty odd years ago I saw some photos of the German prisoners being killed at the camp. Army photographers recorded it. The krauts were lined up in one long row and gunned down by tripod mounted air-cooled Browning machine guns. Can never understand why people just stand there and accept their murders instead of trying to at least run.
Also, I don’t think these were not the regular camp guards but unlucky dumbasses snagged into being guards when the real vermin scum had taken off.
I know what I'm saying is wrong - but THANK YOU AMERICAN SOLDIERS.... THANK YOU FOR KILLING THE MONSTERS.
All correct except for Arizona - That state's guard were detached and ended up in the Pacific Theater.
A bit of ironic history is that the 45th's original insignia was the 'reversed' Swastica as it was an American Indian sign for good luck. The patch was dropped and replaced with the Thunderbird logo and that also became the Division's name.
As for this story of a massacre, my late father served in the 45th from 1938 through Korea and drove through Dachau on his way to set up the CP (Command Post) in Munich. There he chose the same Beer Hall where Hitler staged his unsuccessful 'Putsch' in 1923 for the CP.
He was a good friend of General Sparks and my Dad said that, like all wars, there probably had been prisoners killed but it was unorganized and while the battle was still being fought. There is a biography of General and Judge Felix Sparks titled "The Liberator" for those who may be interested.
My dad was a young kid marching up the boot of Italy, actually he was a brass driver and he said that the soldiers took no German prisoners, none.
Maybe SS losers knew they were monsters - maybe when they saw the looks of disgust American soldiers had on their faces they realized Germans were the filth of the world.. And they sensed that for all time their 'Reich' would be the worst of the worst of all human governments. (Well, unless ISIS gets larger and competes for 'the worst of the worst of all human organizations'....)
My favorite uncle, who hired me when I returned to the world, told me, that at the end of the war his unit was near a nazi 'camp'. He and some others took a ride to see what was up?
All he said was "I wish I never looked".
He was a successful and popular man, I don't think anyone knew, that many nights he woke up screaming!
His daughter always said 'it's about the war'.
They never knew.
I still don’t understand how folks just accept being murdered and don’t even attempt to.try to do something. Look at the losers still standing there with their hands up. Hard to feel a bit sorry for them.
BTW, the pics at the above Dachau link aren’t the ones I saw. They didn’t show two MGs at once like the ones I had seen.
U
In the 80s I also saw some really good clear 8x10 black and white photos of young American GIs with their hands wired lying in a roadside ditch in northern South Korea. They had surrendered and been killed right after the invasion start in June 1950.
At the first of the year the Germans opened a second offensive, Nordwind, directed at Alsace and 7th Army in which the 45th was hotly engaged. Since the entire front from south of Aachen down nearly to Strasbourg was under attack a lot of people lump it all together and say the 45th was engaged in the Bulge fight.
See 55. Missed you.
After the war he was a Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court and Commanding General of the Colorado National Guard.
For most of the war Himmler left the Frau home alone while he banged his mistress in Berlin and Berchtesgaden.
They should have all gotten a silver star. Sometimes you can see something that is so horrible you just lose it.
Sowell asserts that the British established a squadron of ships to interdict the slave trade, strictly on moral grounds - and the Royal Navy policy was not to to grant shore leave to British seamen when docking in African ports. There would always be riots any time they did.
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