Posted on 05/19/2015 4:31:18 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
What I find interesting, personally, is how I've never even considered the subject before now. No book or movie I've read or seen mentioned it--they focused on the war itself--and apparently I have little imagination or curiosity. There's a lesson for me there....
Don’t be fooled by the stern tone of the article regarding the German POWs. A lot of them had it better here than they would have had it back in Europe. A plant engineer my dad worked with was one of them. He stayed in a “camp” in Louisiana where he was employed in farm labor. They lived in a barracks/dormitory setting, worked on farms during the days, occasionally had dinner with the farm families, and got weekend passes to go into town to the movies, etc...
And like my dad’s acquaintance, a lot of them found reasons to get back here after they were repatriated.
Contrast this with the experiences of the Germans taken by the Soviets, who were literally worked to death in the camps, held until 1955, overwhelmingly chose repatriation to West Germany, not East Germany, and never had a reason to go back.
He had done farm work in the area during the war and managed to return and eventually get citizenship.
He was from Breslau, Silesia, which as studious members of Homer's class we all know was being handed to Poland to compensate for the land Stalin stole from them in the East. The world he knew was disappearing. He lied about where he was from so they'd ship him to the western zone.
The farmers were short labor during the war but the demand for foodstuffs was high. The POW's had nothing else to do and could make some money on the side. None of them were under any illusion they could find their way on their own back to Germany from the American Midwest. A win-win.
Hermann Göring is captured by forces of the American Seventh Army. (Gene Hanson)
Yes, they got the wrong date on that one.
I noticed that the front page main headline is getting smaller.
Correct. I don’t think we have see a headline smaller than 4 columns since before D-Day.
Thank you, sir!
The policy was that they were repatriated to where they were from, unless they had family ties (such as having married a local girl) to another area. If you were from Dresden, you went back to Dresden. If you were from Munich, you went back to Munich. You didn't get to pick.
My Dad's 33rd Infantry is now scheduled and training to land in the first wave.
His job is evacuating wounded & dead from the battlefield, which means he's not usually right in front lines, but still close enough to sometimes come under fire.
Given Japanese fanaticism, and heavy casualties in US units, I don't see how he's going to make it... which means, I won't be here... how's that going to work?
Uncle Miltie: "Nuke ‘em, I say!"
What's a nukem?
"Mutual understanding through international education, economic stabilization on the basis of Bretton Woods agreements, national unity, equality of peoples, freedom of the press and radio, military force to keep the peace and moral law, founded on an international bill of rights, to guarantee it..."
In high school, in the early 1960s I attended a similar "Student United Nations" session, in San Francisco -- remember it as being a long drive from Monterey, for a boring meeting.
Curious to note these began in 1945, and I suppose, continue to this day.
So why are not the world's problems all solved by now?
My dad was scheduled to be a replacement for your dad after he was killed or wounded. Then someone would have replaced him. And a whole lot of us wouldn’t be here.
So I would be here anyhow.
Neener neener.
Great question. So, why aren't all the world's problems solved?
Maybe what they created in San Francisco was flawed from the start?
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