World War II hero who drove tank through gate of Dachau concentration camp dies at 95

al.com ^ | October 16, 2020 | Greg Garrison

[Tax-chick]

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.

[taxcontrol]

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

[Night Hides Not]

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.

[rfreedom4u]

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.

[DuncanWaring]

Ping.

[Gay State Conservative]

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????

[VeniVidiVici]

See, now I never knew about Flossenburg.

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

[metmom]

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

And people can sense it.

[VeniVidiVici]

There were others worse than Dachau for sure.

[Gay State Conservative]

I visited Dachau years ago on a drab,dreary depressing day.And being at Dachau tripled the depression.

[dfwgator]

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

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

[AnxiouslyWaiting]

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

[VeniVidiVici]

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 :)

[SES1066]

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.

[dfwgator]

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.

[Gay State Conservative]

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.

[VeniVidiVici]

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.

[dfwgator]

This scene just wrecks me everytime I watch it.

Band of Brothers - Liberation of Camp

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

[VeniVidiVici]

That’s some history, my FRiend.

[Night Hides Not]

That episode of Band of Brothers was excellent.