Since anti-German propaganda-mills are still working overtime in the wholesale vilification of a people, we would like to present the crimes and hypocrisies of those who seem to glory in their self-righteous role as "liberators" and "teachers" of democracy and humanitarian values. This relentless propaganda in the movies, television and "literature," is not only cruel, but amounts to a form of mental genocide of the German people; a people who, like any other people, come in all variations of good and bad, crude and enlightened, compassionate and cruel as well as so many shades in-between. It is quite obvious who, for financial extortion and distraction from their own misdeeds, is after 57 years, still beating the drums of hatred and one-sided accusations. How "liberating" it must be in deed, to glory in one's human perfection, not because one is perfect, but, because one is blind to the complexities and intrigues of true history! Like Jesus said, " let those who are innocent throw the first stone!" Are these relentless stone-throwers as innocent as they see themselves? Or do they not even have enough honor to wrestle with their own short-comings as human beings and try to forgive the other as they would forgive themselves? Perhaps more should be said, but in light of the dangers of "free speech" in these times of "politically correct" democracy, we think it best to shut up for the time being and let history reveal its truth as it eventually always does.
In 'Eisenhower's Death Camps':
Part I -- A U.S. Prison Guard's Story
MARTIN BRECH
In October, 1944, at age eighteen, I was drafted into the U.S. army. Largely because of the "Battle of the Bulge," my training was cut short. My furlough was halved, and I was sent overseas immediately. Upon arrival in Le Havre, France, we were quickly loaded into box cars and shipped to the front. When we got there, I was suffering increasingly severe symptoms of mononucleosis, and was sent to a hospital in Belgium. Since mononucleosis was then known as the "kissing disease," I mailed a letter of thanks to my girlfriend.
By the time I left the hospital, the outfit I had trained with in Spartanburg, South Carolina was deep inside Germany, so, despite my protests, I was placed in a "repo depot (replacement depot). I lost interest in the units to which I was assigned and don't recall all of them: non-combat units were ridiculed at that time. My separation qualification record states I was mostly with Company C, 14th Infantry Regiment, during my seventeen-month stay in Germany, but I remember being transferred to other outfits also.
In late March or early April, 1945, I was sent to guard a POW camp near Andernach along the Rhine. I had four years of high school German, so I was able to talk to the prisoners, although this was forbidden. Gradually, however, I was used as an interpreter and asked to ferret out members of the S.S. (I found none.)
In Andernach about 50,000 prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The women were kept in a separate enclosure I did not see until later. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets; many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement. It was a cold, wet spring and their misery from exposure alone was evident.
Even more shocking was to see the prisoners throwing grass and weeds into a tin can containing a thin soup. They told me they did this to help ease their hunger pains. Quickly, they grew emaciated. Dysentery raged, and soon they were sleeping in their own excrement, too weak and crowded to reach the slit trenches. Many were begging for food, sickening and dying before our eyes. We had ample food and supplies, but did nothing to help them, including no medical assistance.
Outraged, I protested to my officers and was met with hostility or bland indifference. When pressed, they explained they were under strict orders from "higher up." No officer would dare do this to 50,000 men if he felt that it was "out of line," leaving him open to charges. Realizing my protests were useless, I asked a friend working in the kitchen if he could slip me some extra food for the prisoners. He too said they were under strict orders to severely ration the prisoners' food and that these orders came from "higher up." But he said they had more food than they knew what to do with and would sneak me some.
When I threw this food over the barbed wire to the prisoners, I was caught and threatened with imprisonment. I repeated the "offense," and one officer angrily threatened to shoot me. I assumed this was a bluff until I encountered a captain on a hill above the Rhine shooting down at a group of German civilian women with his .45 caliber pistol. When I asked, Why?," he mumbled, "Target practice," and fired until his pistol was empty. I saw the women running for cover, but, at that distance, couldn't tell if any had been hit.
This is when I realized I was dealing with cold-blooded killers filled with moralistic hatred. They considered the Germans subhuman and worthy of extermination; another expression of the downward spiral of racism. Articles in the G.I. newspaper, Stars and Stripes, played up the German concentration camps, complete with photos of emaciated bodies; this amplified our self-righteous cruelty and made it easier to imitate behavior we were supposed to oppose. Also, I think, soldiers not exposed to combat were trying to prove how tough they were by taking it out on the prisoners and civilians.
These prisoners, I found out, were mostly farmers and workingmen, as simple and ignorant as many of our own troops. As time went on, more of them lapsed into a zombie-like state of listlessness, while others tried to escape in a demented or suicidal fashion, running through open fields in broad daylight towards the Rhine to quench their thirst. They were mowed down. Some prisoners were as eager for cigarettes as for food, saying they took the edge off their hunger. Accordingly, enterprising G.I. "Yankee traders" were acquiring hordes of watches and rings in exchange for handfuls of cigarettes or less. When I began throwing cartons of cigarettes to the prisoners to ruin this trade, I was threatened by rank-and-file G.I.s too
.
The only bright spot in this gloomy picture came one night when I was put on the "graveyard shift," from two to four A.M. Actually, there was a graveyard on the uphill side of this enclosure, not many yards away. My superiors had forgotten to give me a flashlight and I hadn't bothered to ask for one, disgusted as I was with the whole situation by that time. It was a fairly bright night and I soon became aware of a prisoner crawling under the wires towards the graveyard. We were supposed to shoot escapees on sight, so I started to get up from the ground to warn him to get back. Suddenly I noticed another prisoner crawling from the graveyard back to the enclosure. They were risking their lives to get to the graveyard for something; I had to investigate.
The only bright spot in this gloomy picture came one night when I was put on the "graveyard shift," from two to four A.M. Actually, there was a graveyard on the uphill side of this enclosure, not many yards away. My superiors had forgotten to give me a flashlight and I hadn't bothered to ask for one, disgusted as I was with the whole situation by that time. It was a fairly bright night and I soon became aware of a prisoner crawling under the wires towards the graveyard. We were supposed to shoot escapees on sight, so I started to get up from the ground to warn him to get back. Suddenly I noticed another prisoner crawling from the graveyard back to the enclosure. They were risking their lives to get to the graveyard for something; I had to investigate.
When I entered the gloom of this shrubby, tree-shaded cemetery, I felt completely vulnerable, but somehow curiosity kept me moving. Despite my caution, I tripped over the legs of someone in a prone position. Whipping my rifle around while stumbling and trying to regain composure of mind and body, I soon was relieved I hadn't reflexively fired. The figure sat up. Gradually, I could see the beautiful but terror-stricken face of a woman with a picnic basket nearby. German civilians were not allowed to feed, nor even come near the prisoners, so I quickly assured her I approved of what she was doing, not to be afraid, and that I would leave the graveyard to get out of the way.
I did so immediately and sat down, leaning against a tree at the edge of the cemetery to be inconspicuous and not frighten the prisoners. I imagined then, and still do now, what it would be like to meet a beautiful woman with a picnic basket, under those conditions as a prisoner. I have never forgotten her face.
Eventually, more prisoners crawled back to the enclosure. I saw they were dragging food to their comrades and could only admire their courage and devotion.
On May 8, V.E. Day, I decided to celebrate with some prisoners I was guarding who were baking bread the other prisoners occasionally received. This group had all the bread they could eat, and shared the jovial mood generated by the end of the war. We all thought we were going home soon, a pathetic hope on their part. We were in what was to become the French zone, where I soon would witness the brutality of the French soldiers when we transferred our prisoners to them for their slave labor camps.
On this day, however, we were happy.
As a gesture of friendliness, I emptied my rifle and stood it in the corner, even allowing them to play with it at theirs! request. This thoroughly "broke the ice," and soon we were singing songs we taught each other or I had learned in high school German ("Du, du liegst mir im Herzen"). Out of gratitude, they baked me a special small loaf of sweet bread, the only possible present they had left to offer. I stuffed it in my "Eisenhower jacket" and snuck it back to my barracks, eating it when I had privacy. I have never tasted more delicious bread, nor felt a deeper sense of communion while eating it. I believe a cosmic sense of Christ (the Oneness of all Being) revealed its normally hidden presence to me on that occasion, influencing my later decision to major in philosophy and religion.
Shortly afterwards, some of our weak and sickly prisoners were marched off by French soldiers to their camp. We were riding on a truck behind this column. Temporarily, it slowed down and dropped back, perhaps because the driver was as shocked as I was. Whenever a German prisoner staggered or dropped back, he was hit on the head with a club until he died. The bodies were rolled to the side of the road to be picked up by another truck. For many, this quick death might have been preferable to slow starvation in our "killing fields."
When I finally saw the German women in a separate enclosure, I asked why we were holding them prisoner. I was told they were "camp followers," selected as breeding stock for the S.S. to create a super-race. I spoke to some and must say I never met a more spirited or attractive group of women. I certainly didn't think they deserved imprisonment.
I was used increasingly as an interpreter, and was able to prevent some particularly unfortunate arrests. One rather amusing incident involved an old farmer who was being dragged away by several M.P.s. I was told he had a "fancy Nazi medal," which they showed me. Fortunately, I had a chart identifying such medals. He'd been awarded it for having five children! Perhaps his wife was somewhat relieved to get him "off her back," but I didn't think one of our death camps was a fair punishment for his contribution to Germany. The M.P.s agreed and released him to continue his "dirty work."
Famine began to spread among the German civilians also. It was a common sight to see German women up to their elbows in our garbage cans looking for something edible -- that is, if they weren't chased away.
When I interviewed mayors of small towns and villages, I was told their supply of food had been taken away by "displaced persons" (foreigners who had worked in Germany), who packed the food on trucks and drove away. When I reported this, the response was a shrug. I never saw any Red Cross at the camp or helping civilians, although their coffee and doughnut stands were available everywhere else for us. In the meantime, the Germans had to rely on the sharing of hidden stores until the next harvest.
Hunger made German women more "available," but despite this, rape was prevalent and often accompanied by additional violence. In particular I remember an eighteen-year old woman who had the side of her faced smashed with a rifle butt and was then raped by two G.I.s. Even the French complained that the rapes, looting and drunken destructiveness on the part of our troops was excessive. In Le Havre, we'd been given booklets warning us that the German soldiers had maintained a high standard of behavior with French civilians who were peaceful, and that we should do the same. In this we failed miserably.
"So what?" some would say. "The enemy's atrocities were worse than ours." It is true that I experienced only the end of the war, when we were already the victors. The German opportunity for atrocities had faded; ours was at hand. But two wrongs don't make a right. Rather than copying our enemyís crimes, we should aim once and for all to break the cycle of hatred and vengeance that has plagued and distorted human history. This is why I am speaking out now, forty-five years after the crime. We can never prevent individual war crimes, but we can, if enough of us speak out, influence government policy. We can reject government propaganda that depicts our enemies as subhuman and encourages the kind of outrages I witnessed. We can protest the bombing of civilian targets, which still goes on today. And we can refuse ever to condone our government's murder of unarmed and defeated prisoners of war.
I realize it is difficult for the average citizen to admit witnessing a crime of this magnitude, especially if implicated himself. Even G.I.s sympathetic to the victims were afraid to complain and get into trouble, they told me. And the danger has not ceased. Since I spoke out a few weeks ago, I have received threatening calls and had my mailbox smashed. But its been worth it. Writing about these atrocities has been a catharsis of feeling suppressed too long, a liberation, and perhaps will remind other witnesses that "the truth will make us free, have no fear." We may even learn a supreme lesson from all this: only love can conquer all.
Source: Reprinted from The Journal of Historical Review, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 161-166.
In a U.S. Death Camp -- 1945
WERNER WILHELM LASKA
I was born August 31, 1924 in Berlin. When the National Socialists came to power, I was eight years old.
From 1930 until 1940 I attended school in Berlin. I did not join the Hitler Youth, but suffered no disadvantages because of that. At age twelve I became an altar boy at a Catholic church in Berlin. In fall 1942, I was drafted, like virtually all German men born in 1924, into the German Wehrmacht. After 10 weeks of training I was transferred to Infanterie-Lehr-Brigade 900, which had just been assigned to Russia. From December 1942 until April 1943, we fought the Red Army in southern Russia. After that we were regrouped and christened "Panzergrenadiers." Our next action was in northern Italy and in Yugoslavia. At the beginning of 1944 my unit and others were assembled in France in order to form the new "Panzer-Lehr-Division." On March 15. 1944 we went to Hungary to foil a coup d'état. In May 1944 we moved to France, near Chartres, awaiting the Allied invasion. We were in action from the beginning of the invasion of June 6, first against the British, from July 1944 against the Americans. I myself always fought in the front-line. With great luck I suffered only two injuries, to the knee and to the head, but approximately eighty percent of my comrades were killed or wounded. The remnants of the Panzer-Lehr-Division fell back fighting to Lorraine, where we rested, then fought again, in the Battle of the Bulge. We passed Bastogne and reached St Hubert, but then we ran out of gasoline and ammunition. The Allies' total air supremacy was for us deadly and terrible. Again we had to retreat, after suffering very heavy losses. The Allies pushed us back just across the Rhine River. Unfortunately, the Americans were able to seize the bridge at Remagen and form a bridgehead on the other side of the Rhine.
My unit then consisted of a sergeant and about 40 men, from four or five different companies of our "Panzergrenadier- Lehr-Regiment 901." The situation was already chaotic. Our 40 men were completely cut off from company, battalion, and regimental headquarters. Our next action was against the Remagen bridgehead. Since we were all experienced soldiers, we worked according to the following plan: in the morning-we always stayed in the next village from the American camp -- we destroyed the first American tank when their armor began to move. We still possessed a 7.5 cm gun on an armored car. Then the Americans would stop, and we would retreat. The Americans would call in artillery and aircraft to bombard the point from which we had fired on the lead tank, but we would no longer be there. We played this game for a while. But the Ruhr Pocket became smaller and smaller; our regimental staff retreated from the north and we from the south. Smoke and fire were in the air everywhere.
We soon knew that our time had come! The roads were packed, and the Allied fighter planes were strafing everybody non-stop! They made no distinction between soldiers and civilians. Anything that moved was fair game.
On April 12, 1945 our unit decided to give up, not to die in the last minute. There were about 30 or 35 of us. On that day, in late afternoon, we arrived at a house, standing isolated near a creek. We parked our five vehicles, and then went down into the collar of that home. Some bottles of "hard stuff" went with us, so that we could welcome the Americans in a friendly mood.
I myself did not go down to the cellar; I stayed outside to have a look around. I wanted to be alone. My entire time in military service passed before me; the final step remained to be taken. I remembered all the things that had happened, the good and the bad, on and off duty. We had met nice people, and above all, nice girls. In Hungary, in Italy, in Croatia and in France I had served Mass in Catholic churches, an altar boy in German uniform. Of course, my belt and my pistol had to stay in the sacristy during the Mass. In those days, the Mass was said in Latin. The native priests were always delighted.
I was interrupted in my reveries by shooting and explosions near the house and the creek, in which I took shelter under a small bridge. After that I heard tracked vehicles rolling over the bridge. Then silence. My only weapon was my pistol, but we had decided to surrender. When it was completely dark I approached the house, where the others had been in the cellar. But I must admit that I had not much hope of finding them still there. The vehicles did not allow me a clear view. I heard a voice, but I could not recognize the language. It was unlikely that these soldiers were my comrades. I climbed up through the garden and approached the voice. I heard something like "Anthony world, Anthony world," so by now I knew: "Americans"! I approached the soldier from the back and got around him. Suddenly he discovered me and was very much alarmed, rather than frightened, because I didn't have a weapon in my hand. Seeing my pistol on the belt, he said to me: "Pistol, pistol." I took it off my belt and gave it to him and noticed that he was relieved. He told me then to wait in the garden, while he went into the house to inform his company commander. After a short while he came back and ordered me to enter the house, then follow him. We went upstairs into a room where what looked to be a company staff was assembled. All the men had short haircuts -much shorter than in the German Army -- and looked like farm boys. They asked me only whether I belonged to the same unit they had found in the house.
Another soldier led me into a little closet in which I had to pass the night. I could not sleep at first because of the new situation and my feelings; later I fell asleep anyway. The next morning the same fellow woke me up and directed me downstairs to wait in front of the house for a truck.
The American guards who arrived with the truck were nasty and cruel from the start. I was forced in with kicks and punches to my back. Other German soldiers were already on board. After a drive of an hour or two we arrived at an open field on which many German servicemen were already assembled, in rank and file. As we got off the truck, a large group of Americans awaited us. They received us with shouts and yells, such as: "You Hitler, you Nazi, etc...." We got beaten, kicked and pushed; one of those gangsters brutally tore my watch from my wrist. Each of these bandits already possessed ten or twenty watches, rings and other things. The beating continued until I reached the line where my comrades stood. Most of our water-bottles (canteens), rucksacks etc. were cut off, and even overcoats had to be left on the ground. More and more prisoners arrived, including even boys and old men. After a few hours, big trailer-trucks -- usually used for transporting cattle -- lined up for loading with human cattle.
We had to run the gauntlet to get into the trucks; we were beaten and kicked. Then they jammed us in so tightly that they couldn't even close the hatches. We couldn't even breathe. The soldiers drove the vehicles at high speed over the roads and through villages and towns; behind each trailer-truck always followed a jeep with a mounted machine gun.
In late afternoon we stopped in an open field again, and were unloaded in the same manner, with beating and kicking. We had to line up at attention just like recruits in basic training. Quickly, the Americans fenced us in with rolls of barbed wire, so there was no space to sit or to lie down that night. We even had to do our necessities in the standing position. Since we received no water or foodstuffs, our thirst and hunger became acute and urgent. Some men still had tea in their canteens, but there was hardly enough for everyone.
Next day the procedure began as on the day before; running the gauntlet into the cattle-trailers, then transport to the next open field. No drinking and no eating, but always fenced in - there is an American song: "... Don't fence me in ..." - as well as the childish behavior of most of the Americans: Punishing the Nazis! After the first night, when we were loaded again, some of us stayed on that field, either dead or so weak and sick that they could not move any more. We had been approaching the Rhine River, as we noticed but we had still one night to pass in the manner related. It was terrible! All this could not have been a coincidence. It must have been a plan, because, as we later learned, there was nearly the same treatment in all camps run by American units. During the war we heard about the "Morgenthau-Plan" and the "Kaufman-Plan," and exactly that seemed to have been happening to us in those moments: the extermination of an entire people!
The next afternoon we crossed a bridge and were unloaded at an almost completed camp near Andernach (a small town on the Rhine River). There were already barbed wire fences around the enclosure. Within it were cages for several thousand people. We were driven into the cages and left alone. Water-pipes were installed in each cage to pump water from the Rhine into the camp. We had to wait many hours before we could drink it The problem now was the lack of cups or containers among all but a few. We almost fought for the first drink, which really stank from the chlorine which had been added. After the first drink our hunger became enormous. The little grass in the cages was eaten immediately away by the human cattle.
I was with two comrades of my former company; we decided to stay together. Our possessions were one overcoat and one tent-cloth. In order to prepare for that first night, we had to scrape out a hole in the ground, in the earth, to get some cover against the wind. Against the rain we had none.
The weather in April/May/June/July 1945 was pretty bad: hot days, plenty of rain, and even snow and frosty nights. There at Andernach we had more space than on the three previous nights, but only enough to lie down on.
We did not sleep much that night, but discussed our future and the chances of survival under those circumstances.
Nobody can imagine how human beings can live in open air, on a field with little space, bad water and hunger rations for days, weeks and months. Concentration camps had, at least, barracks with heating, with beds, with blankets, with washrooms, with toilets, with warm meals, with bread, etc ...
The men in the cages were divided into thousands, then into hundreds, and finally into tens for better distribution of rations. In one corner of each cage the inmates had to shovel a ditch as a toilet for all the men in the cage; of course, in standing or crouching position in open air. A layer of disinfectants had to be added every day. Facilities for washing were non-existent. Passing the nights was a great problem for each of us. None could sleep all night through -- the longest one could do so uninterrupted was three or four hours. Every night 30 or 40 per cent of the inmates were walking around at any given time. The ground had been frozen and wet; we three comrades had only a tent-cloth and an overcoat for lying on and for cover. Sometimes in our hole there would be a few inches of rain water, in which we had to lie throughout the night All three of us had to lie on one side; turning over on to the other side had to be done in unison. The position in the middle was the best, so every three days each of us got it once.
On the second day in Andernach, we received our first food ration. After hours of desperate waiting, each of us at last received a spoonful of raw beans, a spoonful of sugar, a spoonful of raw wheat, a spoonful of milk-powder and sometimes -- not every day - a spoonful of corned-beef. If somebody "organized" a few boxes he could perhaps cook or warm up some of these raw foodstuffs. But for these empty boxes one was almost murdered. Of course, all the raw beans and wheat-corns were counted on distribution, as was everything else, too. In such situations a human being can easily become animal-like. Everybody was waiting the whole day long for the moment of the ration distribution. Then the battle for each tiny corn began; it must have been the organism's survival instinct One's only interest was in food and water; how low can human nature sink?
After two or three weeks in Andernach, a large part of the inmates was transferred to the two camps of Sinzig/Remagen, north of the camp at Andernach. We were packed in box-cars and transported along the Rhine by train. The final capacity of Sinzig was about 180,000 prisoners, that of Remagen approximately 120,000. Both camps were almost adjacent, and were called "The Golden Mile."
Sinzig was 4 kilometers long and 800 meters wide, with two rows of thirteen cages each, and in the middle a passageway; the cages were approximately 300 by 300 meters. All four sides of every cage had two barbed-wire fences, almost 3 meters high; in between those two fences ran a barbed-wire roll. Watch-towers with mounted machine guns were posted at all four corners. The Rhine River was just 100 yards away Each cage held 7,000 people.
The "open-air" situation was exactly the same as in Andernach; likewise the water distribution, the toilets, the holes in the ground and the food-rations. Inside, all inmates had to keep 3 meters from the fences. Several prisoners who had come too close to the fences were shot; the guard did not shoot only once, they shot ten or twelve times -- so those who infringed the 3-meter line invariably died.
My two comrades and I were put in cage 17, on the Rhine side; when we first entered, there was still grass and some clover on the ground but only for minutes -- the hunger was too enormous!
After that, there was mud and only mud all around! We had to scratch a new hole as a bed for the three of us.
Every morning a truck passed by the cages to pick up the dead from the previous night, those who were either shot within or on the fences, or dead from hunger or typhoid, dysentery and other sicknesses. Of every ten attempting to escape, eight were shot and two got through. The youngest inmates were 13 or 14 years old, the oldest around 80. Sometimes the Americans picked up everybody whom they could find in the streets. Our impression of the Americans was that of gangsters, even worse than the Nazis had described them in their propaganda. We knew that the treatment of the American prisoners in Germany during the war had been excellent, unless they tried to escape. We did not occupy America, we did no harm to the Americans; why this hatred and this revenge? To play the savior for the suffering peoples in Europe would have been worthy. If only America had done the same before the last war, and also after 1945 throughout the world. Torturing defenseless children, women and men has nothing to do with glory!
One should not forget that the Germans treated the Jewish American prisoners in the German camps exactly as the other Americans.
The month of May in 1945 was rainy and cold, snow fell on at least two days. Sleeping in our holes became a horror for all of us. We got weaker and weaker, our bodies consisted almost of skin and bones.
At the main gate there was one cage with girls and women who were suffering even more than we did. These were females who had been in the Wehrmacht in the administrative or medical services. Everybody in the camp was trembling and shivering that May 1945. The youngsters, of whom a few thousand were in the the camp, had to walk the central alley (4 km long) and back every day with several bricks in their hands, just for the sport of the Americans. Many of those kids collapsed and could not stand up anymore.
On several days we saw injured prisoners who had been chased out of military hospitals and put in our camp. A ghostlike parade of men with crutches, empty sleeves, blind eyes marched the alley. We first thought these must be phantoms, but they were no spooks! One could also find in Sinzig former KZ-inmates, anti-Nazis, deserters, et al.
Occasionally, American soldiers came to the fences and traded cigarettes and C-rations for jewelry and watches-only a few of us possessed such things -- and some conversations took place. When the Germans asked them why such treatment was administered, the answer was always because of the concentration camps -- no mention of gassing at that time. Our men argued that the situation in the concentration camps and the one in our camp could not be compared, because one day in Sinzig was the equivalent of twenty days in a concentration camp. They had barracks, beds, wash-rooms, toilets, heating, hospitals, warm meals etc., etc. As our punishment for the killing of Jews we had none of these facilities, the Americans told us. Therefore, they treated us like cattle or beasts. Many deaths in our camp resulted from the collapse of our holes dug for shelter, as well as from typhoid, from dysentery, from hunger, from approaching the fences, from attempts to escape, etc.
Our day's work waiting a few hours in a line for water in the morning; waiting many hours for the food-ration in the afternoon. In general, waiting for death.
Those who had not hated Americans before now changed their minds completely.
After three or four weeks we received our first ration of bread. But one loaf of bread for 40 men; several days later we got two raw potatoes.
Outside the camp the Americans were burning food which they could not eat themselves.
The attempts to escape and the shooting by the fences increased the longer we were in the camp; the desperate situation must have been the reason. In the middle of June 1945 the Americans began to release some prisoners. People who lived in the Rhineland could get discharged. At the end of June 1945, our cage 17 and the opposite one, 16, became the last in the entire camp, as cage 19 was emptied.
We speculated that the Americans must release everybody soon, or all of us would die in the next one or two months; there was no other alternative!
In the first days of July -- after being in this hell for over 80 days -- I got a fever and fell very ill. All others in the cages who had displayed those symptoms died shortly afterwards. My fever must have reached over 40C (104F); I had to refuse the daily ration because I couldn't eat anything. I knew that my chances of surviving in the camp were nil: there was no hospital. I had survived all the battles and combat in the war with two small injuries, but now my hour had come! I then decided not to die slowly within two or three days, but instead to die quickly, on or at the fence. The chances of getting through were 2 in 10. I let two of my comrades know that they should see next morning whether I had been shot or whether I had been lucky. Giving them the address of my parents, in order to notify them in the first case, I made ready to escape or to die a quick death that night. After 84 days under these conditions, death might be a relied
After sunset I loitered near the fence of the former cage 19, at a place where the barbed wire seemed to be a little looser than at other points. Along the whole length of the fence there marched four single American sentries, each with about 70 meters to guard. Beside the four guards a jeep -- with headlights and a mounted machine gun -- drove back and forth along the entire length. At both ends of the fence were the watchtowers, also with machine guns. At that moment there were many bullets in store for me. At a point shortly after midnight, when the guards and the crew of the jeep had just been relieved, one guard passed me, just as the jeep came from the other side and blinded, for a moment, the next guard coming up. Now I went, or better, tore through the first fence, then jumped over the concertina wire and through the second fence -- my fever forgotten, and bleeding all over mybody from the barbed wire. I left most of my uniform on the wire, but at the moment I felt nothing. Yet I was awaiting any second the hits in my body, then the sounds of the gunfire. Behind the fence I crept meter by meter, across the path of the jeep, still awaiting the shots. Suddenly I fell in a hole. It must have been 20 or 30 meters past the guard-line. By now, I could not move; I just lay in that hole shaking. I could hear the guards and the jeep going back and forth. My uniform was in rags and shreds, my hands, my chest, my legs, my back and my chin were bleeding. There were shots, but from other cages. After an hour I was able to creep out of my hole. I reached the other end of the cage, about 300 meters away. It took me about two hours to negotiate the different fences and escape the camp.
I had to cross railway tracks and a main road to reach the hills. I climbed on all fours, and had to rest again for four hours. A woman found me and told that there was an isolated farm in which escaped prisoners could always find first-aid. I finally reached this farm and found experts who knew how to treat men like me. There were seven or eight other fellows there, all escaped from Sinzig or Remagen. We were put up with blankets in the stable. As my first nourishment I got tea, then oatmeal gruel, and after several days, bread, milk and some meat. After 3 or 4 weeks I could leave my saviors with gratitude.
I learned during that time that a few days after my flight the French had taken over the camps and transported all the prisoners to France for slave-labor.
After approximately six weeks of freedom, the French caught me in a village and sent me to France to work in coal mines and other nasty places, where my ordeal continued. In 1948 I escaped to Spain, where I was again imprisoned in the famous concentration camp "Nanclares del la Oca" and returned to France.
On January 7, 1950, the French discharged me to Germany. Shortly afterwards I immigrated to Canada, where I lived until 1960.
Source: Reprinted from The Journal of Historical Review, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 166-175.
Eisenhower's Holocaust His Slaughter Of 1.7 Million Germans
From http://www.rense.com/
Author Not Known 12-28-03
"God, I hate the Germans..." (Dwight David Eisenhower in a letter to his wife in September, 1944)
First, I want you to picture something in your mind. You are a German soldier who survived through the battles of World II. You were not really politically involved, and your parents were also indifferent to politics, but suddenly your education was interrupted and you were drafted into the German army and told where to fight. Now, in the Spring of 1945, you see that your country has been demolished by the Allies, your cities lie in ruins, and half of your family has been killed or is missing. Now, your unit is being surrounded, and it is finally time to surrender. The fact is, there is no other choice.
It has been a long, cold winter. The German army rations have not been all that good, but you managed to survive. Spring came late that year, with weeks of cold rainy weather in demolished Europe. Your boots are tattered, your uniform is falling apart, and the stress of surrender and the confusion that lies ahead for you has your guts being torn out. Now, it is over, you must surrender or be shot. This is war and the real world.
You are taken as a German Prisoner of War into American hands. The Americans had 200 such Prisoner of War camps scattered across Germany. You are marched to a compound surrounded with barbed wire fences as far as the eye can see. Thousands upon thousands of your fellow German soldiers are already in this make-shift corral. You see no evidence of a latrine and after three hours of marching through the mud of the spring rain, the comfort of a latrine is upper-most in your mind. You are driven through the heavily guarded gate and find yourself free to move about, and you begin the futile search for the latrine. Finally, you ask for directions, and are informed that no such luxury exists.
No more time. You find a place and squat. First you were exhausted, then hungry, then fearful, and now; dirty. Hundreds more German prisoners are behind you, pushing you on, jamming you together and every one of them searching for the latrine as soon as they could do so. Now, late in the day, there is no space to even squat, much less sit down to rest your weary legs. None of the prisoners, you quickly learn, have had any food that day, in fact there was no food while in the American hands that any surviving prisoner can testify to. No one has eaten any food for weeks, and they are slowly starving and dying. But, they can't do this to us! There are the Geneva Convention rules for the treatment of Prisoners of War. There must be some mistake! Hope continues through the night, with no shelter from the cold, biting rain.
Your uniform is sopping wet, and formerly brave soldiers are weeping all around you, as buddy after buddy dies from the lack of food, water, sleep and shelter from the weather. After weeks of this, your own hope bleeds off into despair, and finally you actually begin to envy those who, having surrendered first manhood and then dignity, now also surrender life itself. More hopeless weeks go by. Finally, the last thing you remember is falling, unable to get up, and lying face down in the mud mixed with the excrement of those who have gone before.
Your body will be picked up long after it is cold, and taken to a special tent where your clothing is stripped off. So that you will be quickly forgotten, and never again identified, your dog-tag is snipped in half and your body along with those of your fellow soldiers are covered with chemicals for rapid decomposition and buried. You were not one of the exceptions, for more than one million seven hundred thousand German Prisoners of War died from a deliberate policy of extermination by starvation, exposure, and disease, under direct orders of the General Dwight David Eisenhower.
One month before the end of World War 11, General Eisenhower issued special orders concerning the treatment of German Prisoners and specific in the language of those orders was this statement,
"Prison enclosures are to provide no shelter or other comforts."
Eisenhower biographer Stephen Ambrose, who was given access to the Eisenhower personal letters, states that he proposed to exterminate the entire German General Staff, thousands of people, after the war.
Eisenhower, in his personal letters, did not merely hate the Nazi Regime, and the few who imposed its will down from the top, but that HE HATED THE GERMAN PEOPLE AS A RACE. It was his personal intent to destroy as many of them as he could, and one way was to wipe out as many prisoners of war as possible.
Of course, that was illegal under International law, so he issued an order on March 10, 1945 and verified by his initials on a cable of that date, that German Prisoners of War be predesignated as "Disarmed Enemy Forces" called in these reports as DEF. He ordered that these Germans did not fall under the Geneva Rules, and were not to be fed or given any water or medical attention. The Swiss Red Cross was not to inspect the camps, for under the DEF classification, they had no such authority or jurisdiction.
Months after the war was officially over, Eisenhower's special German DEF camps were still in operation forcing the men into confinement, but denying that they were prisoners. As soon as the war was over, General George Patton simply turned his prisoners loose to fend for themselves and find their way home as best they could. Eisenhower was furious, and issued a specific order to Patton, to turn these men over to the DEF camps. Knowing Patton as we do from history, we know that these orders were largely ignored, and it may well be that Patton's untimely and curious death may have been a result of what he knew about these wretched Eisenhower DEF camps.
The book, OTHER LOSSES, found its way into the hands of a Canadian news reporter, Peter Worthington, of the OTTAWA SUN. He did his own research through contacts he had in Canada, and reported in his column on September 12,1989 the following, in part:
"...it is hard to escape the conclusion that Dwight Eisenhower was a war criminal of epic proportions. His (DEF) policy killed more Germans in peace than were killed in the European Theater."
"For years we have blamed the 1.7 million missing German POW's on the Russians. Until now, no one dug too deeply ... Witnesses and survivors have been interviewed by the author; one Allied officer compared the American camps to Buchenwald."
It is known, that the Allies had sufficient stockpiles of food and medicine to care for these German soldiers. This was deliberately and intentionally denied them. Many men died of gangrene from frostbite due to deliberate exposure. Local German people who offered these men food, were denied. General Patton's Third Army was the only command in the European Theater to release significant numbers of Germans.
Others, such as Omar Bradley and General J.C.H. Lee, Commander of Com Z, tried, and ordered the release of prisoners within a week of the war's end. However, a SHAEF Order, signed by Eisenhower, countermanded them on May 15th.
Does that make you angry? What will it take to get the average apathetic American involved in saving his country from such traitors at the top? Thirty years ago, amid the high popularity of Eisenhower, a book was written setting out the political and moral philosophy; of Dwight David Eisenhower called, THE POLITICIAN, by Robert Welch. This year is the 107th Anniversary of Eisenhower's birth in Denison, Texas on October 14, 1890, the son of Jacob David Eisenhower and his wife Ida. Everyone is all excited about the celebration of this landmark in the history of "this American patriot." Senator Robert Dole, in honor of the Commander of the American Death Camps, proposed that Washington's Dulles Airport be renamed the Eisenhower Airport!
The UNITED STATES MINT in Philadelphia, PA is actually issuing a special Eisenhower Centennial Silver Dollar for only $25 each. They will only mint 4 million of these collector's items, and veteran's magazines are promoting these coins under the slogan, "Remember the Man...Remember the Times..." Pardon me if I regurgitate!
There will be some veterans who will not be buying these coins. Two will be Col. James Mason and Col. Charles Beasley who were in the U.S. Army Medical Corps who published a paper on the Eisenhower Death Camps in 1950. They stated in part:
"Huddled close together for warmth, behind the barbed wire was a most awesome sight; nearly 100,000 haggard, apathetic, dirty, gaunt, blank-staring men clad in dirty gray uniforms, and standing ankle deep in mud ... water was a major problem, yet only 200 yards away the River Rhine was running bank-full."
Another Veteran, who will not be buying any of the Eisenhower Silver Dollars is Martin Brech of Mahopac, New York, a semi-retired professor of philosophy at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY. In 1945, Brech was an 18 year old Private First Class in Company C of the 14th Infantry, assigned as a guard and interpreter at the Eisenhower Death Camp at Andernach, along the Rhine River. He stated for SPOTLIGHT, February 12, 1990:
"My protests (regarding treatment of the German DEF'S) were met with hostility or indifference, and when I threw our ample rations to them over the barbed wire. I was threatened, making it clear that it was our deliberate policy not to adequately feed them."
"When they caught me throwing C- Rations over the fence, they threatened me with imprisonment. One Captain told me that he would shoot me if he saw me again tossing food to the Germans ... Some of the men were really only boys 13 years of age...Some of the prisoners were old men drafted by Hitler in his last ditch stand ... I understand that average weight of the prisoners at Andernach was 90 pounds...I have received threats ... Nevertheless, this...has liberated me, for I may now be heard when I relate the horrible atrocity I witnessed as a prison guard for one of 'Ike's death camps' along the Rhine." (Betty Lou Smith Hanson)
Note: Remember the photo of Ike's West Point yearbook picture when he was dubbed "IKE, THE TERRIBLE SWEDISH JEW"? By the way, he was next, or nearly so, to the last in his class. This article was first printed in 1990, but we thought it was meaningful to reprint it now.
Note: During Cadet Eisenhower's time at West Point Academy, Eisenhower was summoned to the office of the headmaster and was asked some pointed questions. At the time, it was routine procedure to test a cadet's blood to insure White racial integrity.
Apparently, there was a question of Eisenhower's racial lineage and this was brought to Eisenhower's attention by the headmaster. When asked if he was part Oriental, Eisenhower replied in the negative. After some discussion, Eisenhower admitted having Jewish background. The headmaster then reportedly said, "That's where you get your Oriental blood?" Although he was allowed to remain at the academy, word got around since this was a time in history when non-Whites were not allowed into the academy. Note - The issue of Eisenhower's little-known Jewish background in academically essential in understanding his psychopathic hatred of German men, women and children.
Later, in Eisenhower's West Point Military Academy graduating class yearbook, published in 1915, Eisenhower is identified as a "terrible Swedish Jew."
Wherever Eisenhower went during his military career, Eisenhower's Jewish background and secondary manifesting behavior was a concern to his fellow officers. During World War II when Col. Eisenhower was working for Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the South Pacific, MacArthur protested to his superiors in Washington (DC) that Eisenhower was incompetent and that he did not want Eisenhower on his staff.
In 1943, Washington not only transferred Col. Eisenhower to Europe but promoted him over more than 30 more experienced senior officers to five star general and placed him in charge of all the US forces in Europe.
Thus it comes as no surprise that General George Patton, a real Aryan warrior, hated Eisenhower.
[Ed: Patton was keen to fight the Soviets, and reportedly kept some German units ready to move against the Soviets...unsurprisingly he was killed; after the war, in a 'car crash,' just like Lawrence of Arabia was conveniently bumped off, in a similar manner, for his 'pro-fascist' views].
Comment From George 12-28-3
Finally, the truth about Ike. He was a zionist!, a racist! and a slaughterer of innocents! He was always these things. And all anyone remembers is his famous quote "to beware of the military/industrial complex." Like this knowledge means he was a great precient prophet, when he was really a part of the NWO and helped set the US up for all that followed. The tooling jobs and industry started to leave the US in the early '50's, when Ike got into power. It was Japan they were building. Notice the difference between the destruction of Japan and the quick buildup of the Philipines and Japan and the Pacific the US took over, after the war of hegemony to steal the wealth of the Pacific Rim and present day Afghanistan, Iraq etc., now that the zionists rule the 'world'. The zionist essence is evil, destructive and self-destructive. Ike was a tool of the zionist evil essence.
German POW's Diary Reveals More Of Ike's Holocaust 12-29-3
Note - The following diary extract has been provided by the nephew of the author under the conditions we honor his request for anonymity. -ed
A transcript of my Uncle's words...from my Mother's diary:
"Suddenly an American Jeep moved towards us and several American Soldiers surrounded us. There was no officer in charge, and the first thing the 'Amis' did - they liberated us, I mean, from our few valuables, mainly rings and watches........ We were now prisoners of war- no doubt about it!
The first night we were herded into a barn, where we met about 100 men who shared the same fate. To make my story short, we were finally transported to Fuerstenfeldbruck near Munich. Here we, who were gathered around Hermann, interrupted him and gasped in dismay.
Fuerstenfeldbruck had become known to us as one of the most cruel POW camps in the American zone.
Then my brother continued:
Again we were searched and had to surrender everything, even our field utensils, except a spoon. Here, in freezing temperature, 20,000 of us were squeezed together on the naked ground, without blanket or cover, exposed day and night to the winter weather.
For six days we received neither food nor water! We used our spoons to catch drops of rain.
We were surrounded by heavy tanks. During the night bright searchlights blinded us, so that sleep was impossible. We napped from time to time, standing up and leaning against each other. It was keeping us warmer that sitting on the frozen ground.
Many of us were near collapse. One of our comrades went mad, he jumped around wildly, wailing and whimpering. he was shot at once. His body was lying on the ground, and we were not allowed to come near him. He was not he only one. Each suspicious movement caused the guards to shoot into the crowd, and a few were always hit.
German civilians, mainly women of the surrounding villages, tried to approach the camp to bring food and water for us prisoners. they were chased away.
Our German officers could finally succeed to submit an official protest, particularly because of the deprivation of water. As a response, a fire hose was thrown into the midst of the densely crowded prisoners and then turned on. Because of the high water pressure the hose moved violently to and fro. Prisoners tumbled, fell, got up and ran again to catch a bit of water. In that confusion the water went to waste, and the ground under us turned into slippery mud. All the while the 'Amis' watched that spectacle, finding it very funny and most entertaining. They laughed at our predicament as hard as they could. Then suddenly, they turned the water off again.
We had not expected that the Americans would behave in such a manner. We could hardly believe it. War brutalizes human beings.
One day later we were organized into groups of 400 men .... We were to receive two cans of food for each man. This is how it was to be done: The prisoners had to run through he slippery mud, and each one had to grab his two cans quickly, at the moment he passed the guards. One of my comrades slipped and could not run fast enough, He was shot at once ....
On May 10th , several truckloads of us were transported the the garrison of Ulm by the Danube..... As each man jumped into the truck, a guard kicked him in the backbone with his rifle butt.
We arrived in the city of Heilbronn by the Neckar, In the end we counted 240,000 men, who lived on the naked ground and without cover.
Spring and summer were mild this year, but we were starving. At 6;00 am we received coffee, at noon about a pint of soup and 100 grams of bread a day........
The 'Amis' gave us newspapers in German language, describing the terrors of the concentration camps. We did not believe any of it. We figured the Americans only wanted to demoralize us further.
The fields on which we lived belonged to the farmers of the area...soon nothing of the clover and other sprouting greens were left, and the trees were barren. We had eaten each blade of grass.....
In some camps there were Hungarian POW's. 15,000 of them. Mutiny against their officers broke out twice amongst them. After the second mutiny the Americans decided to use German prisoners to govern the Hungarians. Since the Hungarians were used as workers they were well fed. There was more food than they could eat. But when the Germans asked the Americans for permission to bring the Hungarians' leftovers into the camps of the starving Germans, it was denied. The Americans rather destroyed surplus food, than giving it to the Germans.
Sometimes it happened that groups of our own men were gathered and transported away. We presumed they were discharged to go home, and naturally, we wished to be among them. Much later we heard they were sent to labor camps! My mother's cousin, feared that he would be drafted into the Hitler Youth SS, he volunteered to the marines, in 1945 his unit was in Denmark. On April 20th they were captured by the Americans. his experience in the POW camp was identical that of my brother's. They lived in open fields, did not receive and food and water the first six days, and starved nearly to death. German wives and mothers who wanted to throw loaves of bread over the fence, were chased off. The prisoners, just to have something to chew, scraped the bark from young trees. my cousins job was to report each morning how many had died during the night. "and these were not just a few!" he adds to his report he wrote me.
It became known, that the conditions in the POW camps in the American Zone were identical everywhere. We could therefore safely conclude, that it was by intent and by orders from higher ups to starve the German POW's and we blamed General Eisenhower for it. He, who was of German descent could not discern the evildoers during the Nazi time from our decent people. We held that neglect of knowledge and understanding severely against him.
I wish to quote the inscription on the grave stones of those of my German compatriots who have already passed away:
We had to pass through fire and through water. But now you have loosened our bonds
