Posted on 12/27/2020 10:35:26 PM PST by nickcarraway
Two German WWII tombstones at a Texas veterans cemetery — each bearing Nazi swastikas — have been removed and replaced with new ones that do not use the symbol.
The 1943 gravestones belonging to German prisoners of war Alfred Kafka and Georg Forst at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery featured an Iron Cross with a swastika in the middle, and the phrase, “He died far from his home for the Leader (Führer), people and fatherland.”
Cemetary workers removed the stones on Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yes, sir. With the death of Honor comes the death of our own humanity. It CANNOT be permitted.
Chester Nimitz’s family were Germans.
Great story.
I worked about 15 years in Silicon Valley with several of the children of those Russians. Quite a community of former Soviets has grown up in San Jose; Georgians, Russians, Ukrainians... the Russian language is almost as common as Chinese in the South Bay; they even have their own newspaper. They were first generation, so there’s no love lost between them and the old empire; though they love the land, and the people. I always enjoyed getting “the other side” of events from the Cold War. Most of them LOVE Reagan — more than the GOP ever did.
If you take away the swastika, there is nothing to aim at when one pees.
“...Why should enemies of the country be given more rights than U.S. citizens?...”
Oh, like in the recent COVID relief bill where our enemies are allocated billions and the “unwashed masses” of U. S. citizens get a meager $600? I fully agree!!!
“And why were these POWs in Texas?”
My father recalls German POW’s working the fields in Central California back in the day.
‘The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.’
—George Orwell, 1984
There’s a famous photo of a German POW eating at a lunch counter in Texas. He and the other diners are smiling. A black WWII vet once told me that Star and Stripes carried that photo and as it circulated among his unit there was some REALLY angry soldiers.
But, many of the POW’s, from what I gathered were pretty damn happy to be in the camp instead of the war,
A hard choice, a POW camp in Killeen Texas or Kolima in Siberia USSR.
I met a old German lady a few years back, she told me that when she was young Milwaukee has store signs that said English Spoken Here. There were that many there that spoke German.
The German teacher I had in Hight School was a POW in Kansas. He worked on a wheat farm near the camp. After the war ended he stayed in the US. He lived with the family, whose farm he worked on as POW. Stayed there until 1949, when he volunteered to drafted into the U.S. Army.
Old school Warrior’s Code of Honor: bury the dead under their own flag.
My dad served on USS West Virginia during the War. Off Okinawa they were hit by Kamikaze. The pilot’s body was found after the crash. The DC crew was going to toss it overboard. The CO said no. He had a Japanese flag made up and the conducted the traditional burial at sea ceremony for the pilot. This was just shortly after the CO conducted the burial ceremony for the 9 U.S sailors the Japanese pilot killed when he plowed his plane into the ship.
On a side note my neighbor on a street I grew up was a prisoner in a German Stalag. He said Americans were treated very well. He would would write letters for the guards who had family back in the US.
I was only 12-13 when he talked about this. Looking back wish I could have asked him more questions.
One would think since the war is over, and we are allies now, the US would not disturb or change German graves without consultation with either the families of the German dead, or the German government.
+.
Camp Huntsville served as one the first and largest POW camps in Texas. Completed in 1942, the camp opened the following April, when German prisoners captured in North Africa arrived In East Texas. By the end of 1943, Camp Huntsville housed roughly 4,800 prisoners, most from Germany’s famed Afrika Korps. American military personnel at Camp Huntsville offered fair and humane treatment of prisoners who received ample food, fair working conditions, and a wide array of recreational activities.
https://easttexashistory.org/items/show/161#:~:text=Camp%20Huntsville%20served%20as%20one,from%20Germany‘s%20famed%20Afrika%20Korps.
True dat.
No picnic spot ahead. ‘Pod
Was probably buried in accord with regulations for US veterans, which would have included recognition of awards for valor. In this case, the Iron Cross, which was simply depicted with the swastika as it was the way the Germans made the medal in WWII.
I agree. It is entirely possible that the deceased POW’s themselves would have preferred not to be buried under a swastika, but that isn’t the way history happened.
Note this is not to make any kind of equivalence between the swastika and the US Flag. This is just to illustrate a point.
What if we had POW’s who died and were buried overseas under the flag of the USA? The way they are teaching the history of the US these days, I could see some other country removing that headstone with a US Flag inscribed because America is a hateful, racist country.
He said "I cannot stand Americans - you held me prisoner in 1943 and made me harvest corn in Tennessee".
I asked him if he had been captured in North Africa and he said yes, then I smiled and said "bet it was better than going to Russia".
He smiled and bought me breakfast.
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