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World War II hero who drove tank through gate of Dachau concentration camp dies at 95
al.com ^ | October 16, 2020 | Greg Garrison

Posted on 10/17/2020 4:37:21 PM PDT by lowbridge

World War II hero Jim Feezel from Alabama, who drove a tank through the front gate of Dachau in Nazi Germany to liberate prisoners at the infamous concentration camp, has died.

James Martin Feezel died on Thursday, Oct. 15, according to Roselawn Funeral Home in Decatur. He was 95.

In a video interview project by Gary Cosby Jr. with The Decatur Daily in 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, Feezel recalled the moment his commanding officer told him to break through the gate at Dachau on April 29, 1945.

“We were facing the front gate at Dachau prison,” Feezel said. “He said, ‘Jim, put the tank through that gate.’ So, I have the dubious honor of doing that. And, immediately glancing over at the bodies stacked like cord wood, this young 19-year-old just about lost it.”

Feezel, a technical sergeant for the 23rd tank battalion of the 12th Armored Division, drove a Sherman tank during the war.

An emaciated inmate approached the tank after he drove into the camp, he said.

“Looked like a skeleton was walking towards me,” Feezel said. “He was finally too exhausted and he just sat down.”

Feezel emphasized that he was one of many soldiers who played a role in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

“I often reckon with the very fact that I was such a small pebble in a large stream of thousands and thousands of men who went to fight this war,” he said.

(Excerpt) Read more at al.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History; Military/Veterans; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: concentrationcamp; dachau; holocaust; jimfeezel; ww2; wwii
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To: Libloather

Dear old gentleman. Rest in peace.

My great-uncle was in the Army in the Pacific theater. Now my daughter is in the Marine Corps in Okinawa.


21 posted on 10/17/2020 5:38:34 PM PDT by Tax-chick (A society that rejects children will die out and be replaced by one that values them.)
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To: lowbridge

In the eighties, I was stationed in Germany and went to Dachau. Glad I went that once, will never go there again.


22 posted on 10/17/2020 5:38:57 PM PDT by taxcontrol
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To: VeniVidiVici

I was stationed in Germany from 77-81. Made two visits each to Dachau and Flossenburg. I remember the sense of evil that enveloped me at those two places.


23 posted on 10/17/2020 5:39:07 PM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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To: fireman15

paralyzed by the smell

I went to Auschwitz and Birkenau last year. There’s still a weird smell and such an overwhelming strange feeling at both. It seems like evil is still lurking inside the camps.


24 posted on 10/17/2020 5:40:38 PM PDT by rfreedom4u (The root word of vigilante is vigilant!)
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To: archy

Ping.


25 posted on 10/17/2020 5:41:48 PM PDT by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: dfwgator
A lot of people don't know that Simon Weisenthal,the famous Nazi hunter,once said that in his opinion the Stasi was worse than the Gestapo.How bad must organizations like the NKVD and the Stasi be to be worse than the Gestapo????
26 posted on 10/17/2020 5:43:40 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Thanks To Biden Voters Oregon's Now A Battleground State)
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To: Night Hides Not

See, now I never knew about Flossenburg.

Messerschmidt plant in Augsburg too. It was still there when I left in 1983.


27 posted on 10/17/2020 5:46:04 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici
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To: rfreedom4u

I’m sure there’s a spiritual evil that is still residing there.

And people can sense it.


28 posted on 10/17/2020 5:46:19 PM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: dfwgator

There were others worse than Dachau for sure.


29 posted on 10/17/2020 5:46:31 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici
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To: rfreedom4u
I visited Dachau years ago on a drab,dreary depressing day.And being at Dachau tripled the depression.
30 posted on 10/17/2020 5:47:16 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Thanks To Biden Voters Oregon's Now A Battleground State)
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To: VeniVidiVici

This was Edward R. Murrow’s description of Buchenwald...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8ffpIHnuaw


31 posted on 10/17/2020 5:47:55 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: AppyPappy

19 year olds today are burning our cities, erasing our history & celebrating perversion.


32 posted on 10/17/2020 5:49:14 PM PDT by AnxiouslyWaiting
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To: dfwgator

Bit of trivia - Dresden was the site of the first Western business to open in East Germany after the Wall fell.

Burger King moved a mobile unit to the train station and setup shop.

Can I verify that? Probably not. But stationed in Berlin at the time I remember the news like it was yesterday :)


33 posted on 10/17/2020 5:51:13 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici
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To: elcid1970
This hero, now at rest, was probably attached to the 42nd (Rainbow) Infantry Division (ID). The final push into Germany became chaotic as resistance collapsed and battlefronts got tangled. The apparent but disputed 1st outfit to Dachau were units of the 45th ID (Thunderbirds), specifically the 157th Infantry Regiment under the command of Lt.Col. Felix Sparks. As such, he was in command when 'surrendered troops' (SS Guards) were shot by American GIs of the 157th as mentioned in article. The 42nd came in with its Assistant Division Commander Brigadier General Henning Linden, having met with a Swiss Red Cross representative and several Germans claiming to be relief commanders of Dachau and wanting to surrender the camp.

Recommended book on Felix Sparks, retired as Brigadier General and later Colorado State Supreme Court Judge, is Alex Kershaw's "The Liberator". NB: My Dad was 45th HQ Staff and went through Dachau at that time but was only transiting on way to Munich to setup a 157th Command Post. He chose the German Beer Hall that was Hitler's HQ for the November 1923 failed revolt, a fitting reversal.


34 posted on 10/17/2020 5:51:28 PM PDT by SES1066 (2020, VOTE your principles, VOTE your history, VOTE FOR ALL AMERICANS, VOTE colorblind!)
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To: VeniVidiVici

Yes, we bombed the heck out of Germany, but at least in the Western part, we helped to rebuild.

In the DDR, you could still see bombed out buildings everywhere years after the war.


35 posted on 10/17/2020 5:52:48 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: elcid1970
The aggressors always determine how a war is to be fought.If the defenders fail to match their opponents’ tactics they lose.WWII is a war that the civilized world just couldn't afford to lose.
36 posted on 10/17/2020 5:53:27 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Thanks To Biden Voters Oregon's Now A Battleground State)
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To: dfwgator

I’m convinced that the concentration camp scene in Band Of Brothers was a mixture of what US Forces encountered when entering Germany. The scenes in the movie were Dachau, Buchenwald, etc., rolled into one and inserted into the movie.


37 posted on 10/17/2020 5:54:51 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici
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To: SES1066

This scene just wrecks me everytime I watch it.

Band of Brothers - Liberation of Camp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8DReSzEtB0


38 posted on 10/17/2020 5:55:17 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: SES1066

That’s some history, my FRiend.


39 posted on 10/17/2020 5:56:11 PM PDT by VeniVidiVici
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To: VeniVidiVici

That episode of Band of Brothers was excellent.


40 posted on 10/17/2020 5:58:43 PM PDT by Night Hides Not (Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! Remember Gonzales! Come and Take It!)
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