Posted on 11/15/2004 2:15:17 AM PST by LouAvul
FORT BENNING, Georgia (AP) -- They are foreign enemies buried thousands of miles from home, but they are not forgotten.
Less than a week after U.S. soldiers were honored during Veterans Day, dignitaries on Wednesday are to gather and salute the hundreds of thousands of German prisoners of war taken to camps in the United States during World War II -- most of them in the South.
"The minimum you can do is honor these soldiers who sacrificed," said Lt. Col. Herbert R. Sladek, a member of Fort Benning's German Army liaison team, which hosts "Volkstrauertag" -- Germany's day of mourning.
"They were educated in another time period, with another political guideline. In their opinion, they also fought for freedom, liberty and for their fatherland. That's why these people gave all they had -- their own lives."
The camps are an all-but-forgotten part of history, but the prisoners did leave some remnants behind in southern Georgia and throughout the country. Some of them went on to become leaders of postwar Germany.
During World War II, the United States, which had little previous experience with foreign POWs, hastily threw up 700 internment camps to detain 425,000 enemy soldiers, who were arriving sometimes at a rate of 30,000 a month.
The German internees are still remembered for their skills and hard work. With most of America's young men overseas, the POWs helped overcome a labor shortage by harvesting crops and doing other physical labor for 80 cents a day.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Honoring soldiers who fought for Hitler?
Gee, you could say the same thing about terrorists.
And what country invaded their fatherland, that they needed to fight against???
Sure, there's always an asterisk when the dead guy is an SS man. That was different. But they're still dead.
Uh, we "invaded" Afghanistan and Iraq.
Thank you for pointing that out. It's important to remember that these, for the most part, aren't high ranking Nazi's or SS Death Camp guards, the majority of the German POW's were simply rank and file soldiers drafted into the German army by Hitler when he began his conquest of Europe. Keep in mind that these soldiers also, when given the chance, laid down their arms and surrendered to Allied troops. Therank and file German soldiers weren't terrorists blowing up schools or cutting off peoples heads, they were regular soldiers fighting on conventional battlefields according to the rules and laws of war. I wouldn't say that they deserve our respect (they did fight for Hitler after all), but they certainly don't deserve our derision.
And in death, all soldiers are equal. There is a certain honor in giving up your life for your homeland, no matter which country or which side you fought for, and that honor should be remembered from time to time.
So true. Very kind words.
German Army liaison team?
I was talking about, and the article was talking about GERMAN soldiers.
No kidding. Forget it, if you're that thick-headed. {{{sigh}}}
Please, don't make everyone laugh. No one "invaded" Germany. They might not have known about the "final solution" but they SURE AS HELL KNEW THAT FRANCE, HOLLAND, BRITIAN, POLAND, ETC., ETC. DID NOT ATTACK THEM FIRST AND THAT THEY WERE THE AGRESSORS!
Jews were openly persecuted, arrested and deported in Germany from 1933 until the end of the war. Hitler and his henchmen frequently and loudly proclaimed their virulent hatred and intentions to act on their hatred from well before 1933 until the very end in 1945. Hitler quite clearly spells out what he was going to do in "Mein Kampf" (which outsold all other books in Germany for years) including extermination of the Jews and the conquest and enslaving of other nations. Millions of people from the occupied countries were moved into Germany and used as slave labor throughout the war. And if you think the regular army had clean hands in respect to atrocities committed in the occupied countries take a look at any of the books written about the Nuremburg trials.
These men may have fought "bravely" and so what? They fought for one of the most vicious, evil regimes in human history and they did it knowing plenty about what that regime represented and the actions it committed in its drive to dominate Europe. They may deserve a grudging respect for being good fighters but they earned no "honor" and do not deserve any at this late date.
These are conscript soldiers, not volunteers, they are not SS scum, just normal people. They deserve repsect.
And for the record the German people beleieved they were fighting a defensive war- the SS staged a border incident in on the 31st of August to give the impression that Poland attacked first.
There is a great book by a German prisoner who escaped and blended into American society.
Incredibly, the FBI pursued him for twenty years after WWII ended, but he managed to evade them while running a business in California. It was only in the 70s that he was able to straighten things out.
Does anyone remember the man's name and the title of his book?
Except that the Germans had the b*lls to put on uniforms, fight under a flag, and fight (mostly) against other armies rather than women and children.
I'm not standing up for the Nazis -- I'm just saying they are certainly due more respect than people who strap bombs on their kids.
In this month's American Spectator, Ben Stein has a really great article about his father-in-law who died recently. The Colonel said that he had no harsh feelings toward ordinary German soldiers, but that the SS was just plain evil.
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