Posted on 11/08/2014 1:56:55 PM PST by beaversmom
I came across this video on NetFlix a few weeks back. Shortly after, I then found someone had uploaded it to You Tube. I watched it for a third time last night with my mom on my little phone. I think it's well done and very emotional. Amazing what these men went through and survived. I have so much respect for these men. On the You Tube thread, one of the posters said that her father, Norman Fellman, who was one of the GI's featured in the documentary, passed away just this past August. God bless all these men...the men that perished fighting in WWII, the ones that are departing now, and the men that are still with us.
June 10, 2009
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN)
I'll never forget holding World War II medic Tony Acevedo in my arms. He wept and convulsed for more than 10 minutes, his body constricting and tightening in a way I'd never seen before. "I'm sorry," he said, repeating, "I'm sorry. I want to say more, but I can't."
I held his hand and hugged him until he calmed. I had asked what I thought was a simple question. "When I say the name Erwin Metz, what comes to your mind?"
(excerpt)
Marktredwitz, Germany: American medics treat an emaciated, 20-year-old soldier, Private First Class James Watkins of Oakland, California. Watkins was one of 63 American prisoners of war who survived a death march from the subcamp of Buchenwald known as "Berga." Located near the town of Berga am Elster, Germany, the Nazi camp put its captives to work to build a secret underground factory for creating synthetic fuel. The camp's code name was "Schwalbe V."
Thank G*d you weren’t, then.
Get help.
FDR’s Treasury Secretary, Robert Morgenthau, proposed something not quite as radical. It was to completely de-industrialize Germany and leave it an agrarian state. The resulting population losses (~60%) would be incidental to the overall goal of ensuring that the country would not present a threat to its neighbors for a long time into the future.
Your proposal is along the lines of Timur’s “mountains of skulls” approach to conquest.
I’ve seen it, bookmarked it before but it’s worth saying again. You’ve got the best FR home page, one of the best all around bookmark collection pages I”e seen.
Thanks for posting.
It has long been speculated that the author of the “Morgenthau Plan” for the `pastoralization of Germany’ was a communist, one of many in FDR’s administration, and who deliberately leaked this `plan’ to the Nazis to provoke them to fight hard against the Western allies, allowing the Red Army to conquer more of Eastern Europe & Germany.
Otherwise, the theory goes, the Nazis might have made an advantageous truce with the Western powers which would have freed up all their forces on the western front to go and fight the invading Soviets.
My Dad was in Patton’s Third Army & this was the general view of the Morgenthau Plan among the troops.
ping
Much welcome and thank you for link and compliment.
I like the way you think. One of my uncles almost didn’t make it out of the Bulge. Every so often a “Dresden’’ story comes up on the inter-net here and there and usually it’s the same old song;”Dresden had no military value’’, “Bomber Harris was murderer’’, etc. No military value? It did, most notably a railroad network and even if it didn’t, it was a German city. It was war. Tough luck for Dresden.
Well your twins were in charge, quite a philosophy you guys share.
Think? Genocide is thinking? Sickening.
From the article you linked:
“Many Germans clamor for closure on the Holocaust, a final accounting, a resolution, as the 60th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, in May, approaches. If they do not say, ‘’Enough,’’ they think it. Guilt cannot be inherited, like some family heirloom, even if consciousness of the guilt of their forebears cannot be erased. They bite their lips to stop that word — ‘’enough’’ — coming out; they know that if they raise their chins even an inch, someone will push them down again.
But is it not reasonable to demand this Schlußstrich, this closure, now that the Nazi perpetrators are already dead or will be soon? It is reasonable. But memory is not linear and reason has little purchase on it. The crimes of the Nazis have taken a tortuous course through the psyches of survivors. As Primo Levi observed, ‘’The injury cannot be healed: it extends through time.’’ In this moment, such injury inhabits this Florida bungalow.”
The same night I discovered the GI death camp video on NetFlix, right after that I watched another related one that popped up. Forgiving Mengele. Unfortunately, it is not on You Tube to share, but I believe it’s still on NetFlix. Excellent film about a surviving Mengele twin...Eva Kor. Super strong woman that had the strong will and determination to survive from the time she was little. She’s controversial with some, but her spirit is amazing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eva_Mozes_Kor
Genocide? Retribution.
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