Condi's Phony History

Slate ^ | 8/29/03 | Daniel Benjamin

[Burkeman1]

As American post-conflict combat deaths in Iraq overtook the wartime number, the administration counseled patience. "The war on terror is a test of our strength. It is a test of our perseverance, our patience, and our will," President Bush told an American Legion convention.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice embellished the message with what former White House speechwriters immediately recognize as a greatest-generation pander. "There is an understandable tendency to look back on America's experience in postwar Germany and see only the successes," she told the Veterans of Foreign Wars in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 25. "But as some of you here today surely remember, the road we traveled was very difficult. 1945 through 1947 was an especially challenging period. Germany was not immediately stable or prosperous. SS officers—called 'werewolves'—engaged in sabotage and attacked both coalition forces and those locals cooperating with them—much like today's Baathist and Fedayeen remnants."

Speaking to the same group on the same day, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld noted,

One group of those dead-enders was known as "werewolves." They and other Nazi regime remnants targeted Allied soldiers, and they targeted Germans who cooperated with the Allied forces. Mayors were assassinated including the American-appointed mayor of Aachen, the first major German city to be liberated. Children as young as 10 were used as snipers, radio broadcasts, and leaflets warned Germans not to collaborate with the Allies. They plotted sabotage of factories, power plants, rail lines. They blew up police stations and government buildings, and they destroyed stocks of art and antiques that were stored by the Berlin Museum. Does this sound familiar?

Well, no, it doesn't. The Rice-Rumsfeld depiction of the Allied occupation of Germany is a farrago of fiction and a few meager facts.

Werwolf tales have been a favorite of schlock novels, but the reality bore no resemblance to Iraq today. As Antony Beevor observes in The Fall of Berlin 1945, the Nazis began creating Werwolf as a resistance organization in September 1944. "In theory, the training programmes covered sabotage using tins of Heinz oxtail soup packed with plastic explosive and detonated with captured British time pencils," Beevor writes. "… Werwolf recruits were taught to kill sentries with a slip-knotted garrotte about a metre long or a Walther pistol with silencer. …"

In practice, Werwolf amounted to next to nothing. The mayor of Aachen was assassinated on March 25, 1945, on Himmler's orders. This was not a nice thing to do, but it happened before the May 7 Nazi surrender at Reims. It's hardly surprising that Berlin sought to undermine the American occupation before the war was over. And as the U.S. Army's official history, The U.S. Army in the Occupation of Germany 1944-1946, points out, the killing was "probably the Werwolf's most sensational achievement."

[auboy]

Wonder if he's still receiving "marching" orders from Hillary, or is just terminately brainwashed?

[Pukin Dog]

It is too bad that there is so little documentation of these facts. I believe that this is information purposely hidden from the public. You can find bits and pieces on the internet, but it takes time. In the mean time, count on people to continue to lie about it.

[Burkeman1]

LOL! Have you read anything about what the Russians did in Germany? I highly doubt the attacks on Russian troops were motivated by any Nazi "underground".

[goodnesswins]

"If we don't take this war to them, it will come to us."

Actually, I believe it (war) already came to us......we're just trying to prevent more of it here, IMHO.....

[Pukin Dog]

Doubt is one thing, facts are another. Got any? Nope.

[Burkeman1]

LOL- you actually compare that to what is happening in Iraq?

[Pukin Dog]

I made no comparison, I only blew your lie out of the water. Deal with it, or prove me wrong.

[auboy]

terminately = terminally - Must have had Arnold on my mind.:-)

[Burkeman1]

Do you? Was an American soldier being killed a day, on average, in Germany in May, June, July, Aufust, September in Post war Germany? Were mortars being fired on our troops every day? Facts? Yeah right!

[Pukin Dog]

Dont change the subject from your assertion that no one was killed during the German occupation. I provided information to the contrary. You have nothing to prove what you said, so deal with it.

[Mo1]

Your insane if you think every German just dropped his arms after Hitler was gone. Get reeeal !

I agree!

[Burkeman1]

Yes- I concede- 5 Americans were killed a month after the war. Great point.

[Burkeman1]

"Bush haters"- that is almost too funny! I remember when we mocked those who called this site a "Clinton Hater" site! The sad thing is that I will have to vote for Bush over the Democratic alterantive.

[Burkeman1]

Because Condi and Rummy are supposed to be educated and this line that we faced the same resistence in post War Germany as we do in Iraq is a total lie.

[Burkeman1]

Read Beevor (hardly a liberal) and tell me what you think. Heck- call the DOD and ask for a list of combat casualties due to "resistance" in Germany after the war? Tell me what you find.

[altayann]

A case in point is the Nazi Werewolf guerrilla movement founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1044, which fought the occupying forces of Britain, America and Russia until at least 1047.

After which they fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066?

In addition, vigilante attacks caused the deaths of a number of small-town mayors and, in late March 1945, a Werewolf paratroop squad assassinated the Lord Mayor of Aachen

The war didn't end in Europe until May of 1945, meaning that this hardly qualifies as a postwar attack.

If you really insist on claiming that the situation in Iraq is similar to that of Germany in 1945, I would point out one small difference.

In 1945, Germany was under the occupation of two foreign armies: the US and the Soviets. This obviously is not the case with Iraq. Thus, any attempt to compare the two is simply a non starter.

You can either learn your history, or you can STFU, mister.

I'd suggest you try learning a little history yourself before spouting off.

[ClancyJ]

Very well put.

Funny how many carp about the casualties when we are in a war for survival.

Just what do they think the terrorists are training, getting suicide bombers for? Just what would prevent the terrorists from poisoning, sending in biochemical diseases, sabotaging every aspect of American life?

Aren't these the same ones that carped about what Bush knew and when he knew it? Aren't these the ones now saying send in more troops? Aren't these the ones that pour over government documents trying to find some mistake made by the Bush administration that led to the attack.

Do they only care about past attacks and have absolutely no ability to see what terrorists want to do to us? Or, are they so afraid of money being spent to prevent us being blown up because they might not have money for their "programs" or "gimmies". Wonder how they think they will get those "programs" and freebies when we are attacked and hundreds of thousands are slaughtered in America? Seems that will prove very costly - very costly.

I just cannot understand a mentality that is so ignorant and so unwilling to try and protect us from attack. Funny how confident they are in our future safety with no soldiers, no military, no defense as they pour over reports trying to find out what Bush knew and when he knew it, how Bush is corrupt, how the Saudis are in cohoots with Bush - - on and on and on. Absolutely ignorant.

[ClancyJ]

Don't worry about the doubters. This is just a tactic to make us all scramble to find evidence to prove they are wrong.

It does not matter in the least. If terrorists kill soldiers in Iraq or kill Americans here - it does not mean the war was unsuccessful. It just means there are terrorists that have to be stopped. The numbers of deaths do not matter a whit - they have to be stopped.

[Fledermaus]

And the Iraqis didn't kill 6 million Jews.

[ClancyJ]

So, do you expect those soldiers not to fight back? Are they to pull out because they are being shot at?

Since when did soldiers run?

So, we are not to take soldiers into any area unless their safety is guaranteed?

Guess if they all come home, we will all be a lot safer because we are causing no problems for the terrorists as they move in and destroy us. Sort of the same reaction the Jews had in Germany as they were corraled and sent to the gas chambers.