In another thread “Into Darwin’s Dark Night” discussion emerged regarding the number of Germans killed in the aftermath of WWII. The main points;
—– 1) War is hell, and the Germans probably had it coming to them.
—– 2) The Germans were responsible for more deaths of civilians, by far, than the Russians and, the Germans were more brutal. Again, war is hell, so stop complaining.
—– 3) The number of dead Germans can never be known. Even so, we KNOW that it wasn’t in the millions. It was probably “only” about 500,000.
—– 4) America treated prisoners quite fairly, and rarely killed them, directly or indirectly.
GERMANS HAD IT COMING TO THEM
My mother was born in Yugoslavia. The town’s population was about 25% German. She was a young teenager when the Russians came. They promptly executed almost all the German-speaking men in town, including her father. She and her mother went to a prison camp, where both were repeatedly raped. I suppose a Russian-rape isn’t as brutal as a German-rape, so she should be thankful for that. She witnessed Russian soldiers beat her mother to death right in front of her eyes. I’m pretty sure this thin 5’1” teenager never committed any crime against Jews (she didn’t know any), or any other ethnic group. Yeah, she deserved it, though.
My dad was born in Romania and also lived in a German community that largely vanished into thin air after the war. One day the German army swopped in and forcibly made him a soldier. He was captured by the Russians. He was one of the lucky ones as he survived prison camp. He was never allowed to return home. Never saw his family again – what was left of them. Instead, he was turned over to the British. The Brits sent him to England … basically as a slave laborer (I’ll bet you didn’t know the Brits did that) in a coal mine (near the Scottish border, I believe). He wasn’t even given a rudimentary mask to keep from breathing in all the coal dust. He developed an illness, and the Brits had enough of him in that they didn’t want to waste resources helping him get well. So, they generously gave him barely enough money to get the hell out of their country to Bremerhaven. Germany didn’t have room for him. So he stayed there a few months doing menial work, until he had enough pfennigs to make his way to Austria. But, he was a Nazi soldier (not! very few German soldiers were Nazi’s), so I suppose he also deserved it.
500,000 or 9,000,000?
In 1944, Yugoslavia’s new leader, commie bastard Marshal Josip Broz Tito, issued as one of his very first decrees that Germans were “enemies of the people”. Billions of dollars (in today’s money) were confiscated. Conservative estimates are that 120,000 Germans died just in post-war Yugoslavia.
http://www.ihr.org/other/sunic062002.html
———-
In 1992, the author of this book flew to Moscow to visit the newly-opened KGB archives, where he found documented new proof that almost 1,000,000 Germans died …… just in Western prison camps”
———-
This critically acclaimed book chronicles how that wonderful humanitarian, FDR, impressed 4,000,000 Germans into forced labor …. which so disgusted Gen. Patton that he said ….. “It is amusing to recall that we fought the revolution in defense of the rights of man and the civil war to abolish slavery and have now gone back on both principles”. The author estimates 2.5 million ordinary Germans were killed in the post-Reich era.
———
According to the intro —- “The first English-speaking writer to gain access to the newly opened KGB archives in Moscow and to recently declassified information from the renowned Hoover Institution in California,“. The author claims, “9 million Germans died as a result of deliberate Allied starvation and expulsion policies after World War II—one quarter of the country was annexed, and about 15 million people expelled in the largest act of ethnic cleansing the world has ever known.“.
The point of this section is that 500,000 is woefully underestimated and that 9 million is surely a gross exaggeration. The two million figure is the most reasonable and, in fact, the number used in most articles, studies, books, etc.
AMERICAN RIGHTEOUSNESS
As the war in Europe drew to a close, Germans surrendered by the hundreds of thousands. According to British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery, 500,000 Germans surrendered to his 21st Army Group in Northern Germany. On May 8th, 1945 — shortly after V-E Day — the British-Canadian catch totaled more that 2 million. A Captain in the British Army described it as such, ….. “Hungry and frightened, lying in grain fields within fifty feet of us, awaiting the appropriate time to jump up with their hands in the air” Most were quickly released and sent home, or else transferred to the French to help in the post-war work of reconstruction.
The Americans also faced astounding numbers of surrendering German troops: the final tally of prisoners taken by the U.S. army in Europe over 5 million. But the Americans responded very differently.
Corporal Helmut Liebich’s Story.
Among the early U.S captives was one Corporal Helmut Liebich, who had been working in an anti-aircraft experimental group at Peenemunde on the Baltic. Liebich was captured by the Americans on April 17, near Gotha in Central Germany.
Forty-two years later, he recalled vividly that there were no tents in the Gotha camp, just barbed wire fences around a field soon churned to mud. The prisoners received a small ration of food on the first day but it was then cut in half. In order to get it, they were forced to run a gauntlet. Hunched over, they ran between lines of American guards who hit them with sticks as they scurried towards their food.
On April 27, they were transferred to the U.S. camp at Heidesheim farther wet, where there was no food at all for days, then very little. Exposed, starved, and thirsty, the men started to die. Liebich saw between ten and thirty bodies a day being dragged out of his section, B, which at first held around 5,200 men.. He saw one prisoner beat another to death to get his piece of bread. One night when it rained, Liebich saw the sides of the holes in which they were sheltered, dug in soft sandy earth, collapse on men who were too weak to struggle out. They smothered before anyone could get to them. Liebich sat down and wept. “I could hardly believe men could be so cruel to each other.”
Typhus broke out in Heidesheim about the beginning of May. Five days after V-E Day, on May 13, Liebich was transferred to another U.S. POW camp, at Bingen-Rudesheim in the Rhineland near Bad Kreuznach, where he was told that the prisoners numbered somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000, all without shelter, food, water, medicine, or sufficient space.
Soon he fell sick with dysentery and typhus. he was moved again, semiconscious and delirious, in an open-topped railway car with about sixty other prisoners: northwest down the Rhine, with a detour through Holland, where the Dutch stood on bridges to smash stones down on the heads of the prisoners. Sometimes the American guards fired warning shots near the Dutch to keep them off. After three nights, his fellow prisoners helped him stagger into the hug camp at Rheinberg, near the border with the Netherlands, again without shelter or food.
When a little food finally did arrive, it was rotten. In none of the four camps had Leibich seen any shelter for the prisoners. the death rate in the U.S. Rhineland camps at this point, according to surrviving data from a medical survey, was about thirty per cent per year. A normal death rate for a civilian population in 1945 was between one and two percent.
One day in June, through hallucinations of his fever, Liebich saw “the Tommies” coming into the camp. The British had taken over Rheinberg, and that probably saved his life. At this point, Liebich, who is five-foot-ten, weighed 96.8 ponds.
According to stories told to this day by other ex-prisoners of Rheinberg, the last act of the Americans before the British took over was to bulldoze one section level while there were still men living in their holes in the ground.
http://www.whale.to/b/bacque1.html
HOW ABOUT SOME PICTURES?
Humane American camp, at Sinzig-Remagen, spring, 1945. Printed in a German newspaper.
998,000 prisoners killed in Allied Camps. OOPS!! I guess American Censorship failed to block this St. Petersburg article.
Damn Krauts
Whimper
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It seems there have been no “Good guys” in America since the Founders died off….and many of them were suspect as well.
Throughout history it seems that there is only “them” and “us.” Never “good” and “evil.”
My family came over to America in the rush of 1848 (both sides, actually) and settled in Eastern Missouri. I’m glad. Fully one half of my family (dad’s side) was exterminated in WW2.
War is hell indeed, and those fucking vultures in congress would see us in another one, with an even less clear picture of who is good and bad, or even who us and them are.
My Dad got to watch as nazi’s marched Jew’s off to the trains. Funny how one man with a rifle could march unarmed civilians off to their death. To this day my family can’t understand the hatred of Jews. I see it on the news and on the net. Just another group of people as far as i can see. As aryan looking Dutch folks the nazi’s actually treated my family well. My father actually met Hitler. He was visiting a group of men trying to get kids to join the Hitler youth.
Funny, for my family it was the airial bombing by the allies that made their lives hell. Besides the almost starving to death.
They still hated the Nazis and celebrated when the neighborhood enforcer (Claus)was shot dead by the Canadians on D-day.
The only funny note, was the Dutch women who srewed German soldiers were shaved bald and tared and feathered in the town square. This happened as Holland was being freed on D-day.
Yes,owning a gun is a good thing.
A few days ago,on another post, I said that it was imperative that you not loose a war. Any war.! Losers get raped,murdered mistreated and enslaved. That is the facts of life and death. Don`t loose a war.
Along about then there wasn’t much sympathy among Americans for Germany. Four years of all out conventional war does that. Most people would have been happy to watch them all starve to death. Not very Christian, no.
Thanks for posting this Stucky, very interesting information on an aspect of WWII that I know little about.
“Don`t loose a war.” ———- overthecliff
It’s LOSE !! Goddammit.
When all out war must be fought to insure survival of a civilization ( and in WW!! there were many “civilizations ” at stake!) there are no holds bared as to what it takes to win. That makes for extremely horrific actions on both sides to try an insure victory.
That’s why soldiers come home all screwed up in the head from the unforgettable horrors they saw and if necessary had participated in. “Battle fatigue” was common with as much as 20% of the fighting forces out of commission now and then because of mental collapse over atrocities and slaughters they participated in or watched.
I was lucky in my ancestors.. My paternal grandfather fought the war as a Commander of a WWI “Mash” unit behind the front lines but close enough to take casualties from front-line overshoots, strafing upon occasion and German probes that penetrated that far behind the lines. Major Goodloe (my Granddad) once told me a story of the MASH being strafed by “the red baron” a German triplane with Manfred von Richthofen’s colors on it. He killed two nurses in the pass.
The next day, he was back, made one low pass, circled to gain altitude and parachuted a case of champagne into the compound with a note of apology saying that he did not see the ‘RED CROSS” painted on the tops of the wagons (think old fashioned prairie schooners) before he made the strafing run.
He returned once a week and parachuted champagne into the compound until the MASH unit was moved and I suppose he lost track of it.
My grandfather on the paternal side saw the nastiness coming and immigrated to the USA via Ellis Island with his brother in 1906, went to Oklahoma and homesteaded 80 acres (forty to him and forty to his brother. I still own the mineral rights under the land to several sections in Noble Country Oklahoma.
Loosing a war is hazardous to your health unless you are prospective enough to remove oneself and your loved ones from where TSHTF..
All rules goes out the window in war and there is no such thing as chivalry, codes of conduct, or anything else. It’s killed or be killed and any collateral damage among the civilian population is just tough titty.
MA
I watched Thin Red Line last night on IFC. It captures the mental torture and brutality of war better than any movie I’ve seen. Nick Nolte was really good in this movie. Many young star actors before they became stars.
Rereading my article, I just want to make some things clear.
America is not a bad country for what it did post-war. It’s almost understandable. When you’ve seen many of your buddies blown to smithereens (the lucky ones) or dying a slow death with their intestines hanging out, then the lust for revenge is strong and natural.
But, America did commit Bad Acts. It was to dispel the myth that America basically came out of the war with clean hands. No one ever does. And the myth that all Germans were bad people, especially civilians, and they deserved what happened to them.
More proof that dogs are far superior to humans.
Other Losses is a very good book. Just finished, Germany 1945, by Richard Bessel, another great book.
Like overthecliff said, you do not want to lose a war because there will be hell to pay, especially against the Russians.
Some of my ancestors were Germans that were relocated to Poznan after Germany took control of Poland. A few managed to emigrate to America after the war. Some their are no records of what their outcome was. Many Germans took on complete new identities after the war as many records were destroyed.
We are such a brainwashed society, thinking our country only does good, never any evil.
As best I can tell, generally speaking,the people who should suffer in a war don’t, and pretty much everybody else involved else does.
Fuck WordPress and keyboards in general. And typing. It’s a good thing I don’t have to make a living with my hands.
I have and will continue to suggest reading Ken Follett’s novel “Winter of the World” which is actually preceded by his “Fall of Giants”. They paint fantastic pictures of the run up and fighting of WWII and WWI respectively from perspective of Germans, Russians, Americans and English tying it together through various families. They are quite brilliant in my opinion and while they are fictional novels, they are loaded with factual references and keen insight into the politics and mind set of the two periods. Fascism and Communism were competing ideologies that the people in power were vested in in order to maintain their control. While not true ideologies, more just names placed on their individual nationalistic tyranny, they were used to drive millions of men to kill millions of other men. I hope this 4th turning does not end as the last one, as I fear and pray for my children, but hope is not a good strategy, preparation is.
Thank you Stucky for the great article.
Bob.
“I watched Thin Red Line last night on IFC. It captures the mental torture and brutality of war better than any movie I’ve seen” ———- Admin
Absolutely. That was back when Hollywood didn’t blow Washington politicians … who love the smell of a good blow job in the morning.
“Deerhunter” did a glorious job chronicling the heavy lessons of war. It was pure brilliance to have the first half showing how proud and happy the boys from Bethlehem were. So anxious to go off to war. Throwing big wedding parties. Then the second half shows the brutalities, how war changed them, and the deep sense of loyalty amongst war buddies.
“Platoon” shows what it must have been like trying to stay alive in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Oliver Stone had the sense to show ALL the graphic horror ……. Including those committed by the US. He’s not afraid to show both war’s best and worst in human nature.
“Apocalypse Now” , a true classic depicting the before and after effects of Americans living through the Vietnam War.
“Coming Home”, while I despise Hanoi Jane, I like Jon Voight, and that also was a great movie. Instead of war action scenes, it focused on the devastating impact of war on relationships. Infidelity. PTSD. Pain. Trauma. Hopelessness. Just more ‘collateral damage’.
“Full Metal Jacket” was yet another TRUTHFUL presentation of the Vietnam War in all its horror and tragedy (at least from the American point of view).
.
Stucky Challenge; Post 9-11 WHICH MOVIE HAS EVEN COME CLOSE TO TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT EITHER THE IRAQ OR AFGHANISTAN WAR???
Can’t name one, can you?
They are ALL rah-rah-sis-boom-bah, Amurica is #1, hell yeah, we’re bad-ass and we always win. There isn’t even an ATTEMPT at showing real truth about the sins of war in general, and certainly NEVER the truth and sin of Iraq / Afghanistan. Ever. Because the Dept of Defense, DHS, and other alphabet-soup agencies absolutely own Hollywood.
They also own teevee. Some of you youngsters may not believe this. Back in the 1970’s television ACTUALLY SHOWED BODY BAGS WITH DEAD AMERICANS IN THEM. When was the last fucking time you saw that? Never. Innocent dead civilians are just ‘collateral damage’, and dead Americans are quietly tucked away. We have Dirty Politics, and Sanitized Wars.
Fuck’em all to hell.
Stucky,
Thanks for posting this. Really. The vast majority of those in the West didn’t – still don’t – know that this happened. And for the ones that do, the “Well, so?” or “Well, they had it coming” attitude is prevalent.
But these same hypocritical, self-hating, self righteous fucktards will wring their hands and rend their clothing, spreading ashes for the poor American Indians and how they were treated by the Evil White Man. They’re more than happy to condemn the Germans and give a free pass to the Allies, even though their methodology was pretty much the same.
I’m well aware of the disconnect – during war soldiers kill. But after someone – or some people – arbitrarily call it quits, the killing is supposed to stop. Killing after Those In Charge call it quits makes you a murderer. The act itself does not change, just the circumstances surrounding it. Morally and ethically, the acts of putting a bullet in someone’s head and withholding food, medicine and basic sanitation are the same – they both result in the deaths of surrendered, unarmed individuals. It cannot be argued that the supplies of food, potable water, medicine, etc, were not available to supply the prisoners – just the Americans had mountains of resources to spare. Those things were withheld intentionally.
I suppose I should be grateful that my wife’s Grandfather – on her dad’s side – was captured in North Africa early in the war. He got sent to a POW camp in Colorado. Wasn’t so bad. But her grandfather on her mother’s side was less fortunate… he is still one of Die Vermissen. My family emigrated in 1905, but still had close ties up until the 40’s… it’s rumored we have cousins over there still, so I’m about 3/4 sure my relatives survived the war. Just haven’t had contact with them for a long time…
Remember back a few years? Der Spiegel ran a story about fallen German soldiers – on the cover was the image of a long dead German soldier, just bones, but still in uniform and helmet. He lay as he fell back in 1942. The Russians were so hate filled, they didn’t even bother to bury the German dead. Just let them lay there for 60 years. Then came the letters. The captured letters or letters from prison camps, unsent for 60 years that the Russians were holding on to just because they’re fucking assholes. Thousands of letters. Someone finally stepped up and an effort was made to identify and recover the dead and give them some peace. Another group took the letters and a full time effort was made to find the recipients – those who still lived. If not, then the nearest relative. Only a handful (compared to the total amount) have been delivered so far…
I have a book.. bought it at the Clothing/Sales facility on Panzer Kaserne in Stuttgart (home of 1/10 SFG). Check out this excerpt… I’m transcribing it by hand, so this ain’t no copy/paste bulshit… had to go fetch the book from storage out of the basement… wait a minute till I find the relevant part…
Okay..
“Shortly after Shyrykov showed Seldec the bone fields for the first time, the cameras began rolling, and in August of that year, when the program was broadcast, the public’s outcry was deafening. Newspapers ran headlines reading “THE DEATH FIELDS OF STALINGRAD” and “Bones with Identity Tags”; and the monthly magazine Wiener ran a full page photograph of a fallen skeleton still laid out on the grass in its German uniform, including boots. The caption read: “No cross. No wreath.” (wasn’t Der Spiegel, my bad – B). This unknown soldier never made it into a mass grave. Today, he lies in the steppes outside Volgograd exactly as he fell fifty years ago. His shirt and buttons still lie between his ribs.”…
“With the horrific publicity, Shtrykov says, he became besieged by Germans and Austrians, all of whom wanted his help in identifying the fate of the Third Reich’s troops. The Austrian Black Cross contacted him. As did the German Volksbund. In the spring of 1992, Shtrykov went to work with the Germans, who asked if he could locate any German graveyards. “I told them, I can show you fifty graveyards A DAY,” Shtrykov says. “They couldn’t believe it.”
“At first, Shtrykov took the Germans to graveyards that had already been plundered, reinforcing the idea that any identification of their war dead should be undertaken quickly. Then he began showing where troops had gone unburied, and the bone field scenes spurred the German officials to action…”
– “Aftermath: The remnants of war.” Chapter 2 – Ghosts. pp.105
This book is what started me questioning what I was doing. I picked it up quite by accident. Today, it is dog-eared, foxed around the edges, water stained and some pages have been taped in place to keep them from falling out… but it’s what caused my epiphany… I keep it squirreled away and safe.
Stucky,
“But, America did commit Bad Acts. It was to dispel the myth that America basically came out of the war with clean hands. No one ever does. And the myth that all Germans were bad people, especially civilians, and they deserved what happened to them. ”
Followup post.
Exactly right. British General “Bomber” Harris was the architect of firebombing. He was the one who firebombed Dresden, which resulted in a firestorm which killed a quarter million German civilians..
His American counterpart, LeMay, made a statement after doing the exact same thing to the Japanese. Something to the effect of “We’d better win the war, otherwise we’ll hang as war criminals”… something like that, but I have to look it up…
“A personal request: Would you share how they met each and then made their way here?” —- T4C
It’s not a particularly romantic story. It wouldn’t make a good Hallmark movie.
They met in the refugee camp. She didn’t particularly like my father … thought he was to arrogant and a show-off. She was engaged to another man, and my father was this man’s friend. Well, my mom’s fiancee’ left for Milwaukee … left mom behind so he could get established, the plan being to send for mom within the year.
So, one day my mom and her girlfriends go to a dance hall in town. My father is there. She avoids him at first, but she has no money and he does. She accepts a drink. Then, another. He gets her drunk. He walks her home. He has his way with her. (To this day I don’t know if it was the “r” word, and I don’t want to know.) I am the product of that union.
Her fiancee BEGGED her to come to Milwaukee anyway. Said he loved her, and he would love me just as much. She just couldn’t do it. She felt I deserved to have a “real” father, not a step-father.
It also the reason they left Austria. Her out-of-wedlock pregnancy was a scandal. She was humiliated. Dad was shunned. They felt they needed to get away for a while … the initial plan was to go back to Austria after 5 years or so. Ahhhh, the plans of mice and men …..
Conditions at Sinzig-Remagen look worse than those at the notorious Confederate prison camp Andersonville during the American Civil War (War of Northern Aggression) . The former Andersonville commandant was tried and hung after the war ended.
“How old were you when you found out about their horrendous trials and tribulations …” —-T4C
They never even MENTIONED it prior to my early teen years …. and then little bits of information started to trickle in my way. To my great shame, I showed little interest. I was preoccupied with my own life.
As I grew older, and especially after I had my own children, I took a far greater interest. I knew a lot of it by the time I was in my 40’s. However, I am still finding out new things to this very day.
Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History Podcast – Ghosts of the Ostfront. Well worth a listen.
Looks like Mr. Thumbs Down has a bug up his (or, her) ass for me. hahahahaha
You wouldn’t want to identify yourself, would you, you chicken-shit coward?
Stuck – nice info. Some of the facts are in dispute, especially the one re numbers of civilians dead. You quote 2.5 million from one author. The preponderance of authors put the number around 500,000. The 2.5 suits your goal here. It is possibly correct. No one knows.
The Germans were responsible for the deaths of somewhere around 40 million people. I did not say they deserved what happened after the war. I said it was payback. I also said it was wrong, but I understand it. I especially understand why the Russians were less than pleased. They hated Germans and it is entirely understandable. Nothing, and I mean nothing, that happened to any group save perhaps the Jews was as bad as what happened to Russian POWs.
It is akin to what frequently happened when troops finally managed to storm machine gun nests. The gunners would throw up their hands in surrender. They oft tended to be shot. Not everyone is going o recognize surrender. Especially when those doing the surrendering have brutalized the victors.
Losing a war can be a bad experience. For the innocent and the guilty.
BTW – it appears you took a few liberties in paraphrasing my position.
Indians well know the way the vanquished are often treated. It has always been thus.
Billy
Thank you much for doing that transcribing. Sounds like a very good book.
Interesting (maybe) side note.
The other day I asked my dad who he’s cheering for in the Russia vs. Korea soccer game. Holy shit. He let out a long diatribe of invectives that would make YOU blush. Some memories are never forgotten, some sins are never forgiven.
Stucky,
Yeah, they got me too… fuck em..
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“The 2.5 suits your goal here.” —– llpoh
I have no ulterior motives, no ax to grind, and no goals other than finding out what is true.
.
“The preponderance of authors put the number around 500,000.” —— llpoh
That’s just flat out wrong. It sounds like you have a particular goal in mind that suits you.
.
“it appears you took a few liberties in paraphrasing my position.” ——- llpoh
SOME of this post is in response to comments you made. But, not all of it.
The Russians Lost 25 Million in WWII. Guess that would piss you off a bit.
Stucky,
Everyone is all caught up in World Cup around here… the missus is on the phone every day with her folks, etc, babbling about who did what during the games… I was put in the awkward position the other day when she told me that Germany was going to play USA..
Erm…. uh…. well…
Totally understand about your dad. I’m just gonna leave it at that…
So when are we doing a Podcast discussing this article? Still CHICKEN?
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I’ll cross post on the Diner this week.
RE
Stuck – I will try to re-find my sources. I do not have much time at the moment.
I do want to comment on your first section “They Deserved It”.
As I said, that is not something I said. But let’s take your father as an example.
He was conscripted. That sucks. But he had choices – bad choices, but choices nonetheless. He could have refused service. I suspect he would have been shot for that. He could have accepted service and at the earliest opportunity he could have deserted. If caught, he would have been shot for that, too. He could have at the earliest and best opportunity killed as many German officers as possible. Same result for him afterwards.
But instead, he chose to help Germany kill millions of people in a war where Germany was the aggressor.
He had bad choices. He chose the path where he would most likely survive. Most, including me, would have done the same. But he was not innocent. He helped Germany kill something like 30 million civilians. Did he “deserve” what came after? Not in my book. But he was not innocent.
The same can be said for the German civilians that supported the war effort in any manner. They assisted in the deaths of millions. They had choices – bad choices for them individually.
But what would the total result have been if German people had refused to serve, refused to farm for the war effort, etc? How many tens of millions of lives would have been saved.
Germany and Germans were not innocent. They chose to do what they did. The choice was unbelievably hard. But it was still a choice.
Llpoh,
Your arguments could be applied equally to the American Indians…
They could have peacefully given up, conceded defeat and just accepted their fate, moved onto the Res and gotten along with their lives as best they could. But they didn’t. They chose to resist. Lots of lives could have been saved if they just chose to not resist.
Not putting this out there to snipe at you.
Soooo, the “choices” my dad had were;
—— refuse to go
—— go and desert
—— shoot his fellow soldiers
… all of which would have resulted (if caught) in his being shot on sight
and because he didn’t choose these choices ….
…. he “chose to help Germany kill millions of people”.
That logic is FUCKED UP BEYOND BELIEF.
You know, the Indians could have avoided being massacred if they just all moved to Canada. Hard choices. But, their fault!!! See how that works?
Game. Set. Match.
Billy – as I have said, even surrendering did not save them. In general, Indians were not the aggressors. Cannot say the same re Germany.
But I make choices every day. I choose to pay taxes that are used to wage wars that the govt should not be in. I am not innocent. I could choose differently. Instead, I choose self-interest. It is not something I am proud of. But I recognize it for what it is.
Billy
HA! I was writing (and cooking) while you posted.
Stuck – do you deny he help Germany wage a war of aggression? Seriously? He undoubtably followed orders and did exactly as he was told. He was a tiny tiny cog in a giant war machine. But without those cogs the war would not have been fought.
Guess you missed the point where I said I almost certainly would have done the same.
He was a German soldier. He could have chosen otherwise, but did not. Get over it.
Llpoh
So you choose ‘self interest’ and that’s OK ….. but, when my father chooses self interest (not wanting a bullet to his head), then he’s guilty of helping “kill millions”
Is that right?
Plus the basic difference is aggressor/defender. Germany was the aggressor. Indians not so much.
“He could have chosen otherwise, but did not.” ——– llpoh
Yeah, he could have chosen death. That noble, Indian Way.
You’re a major fucking idiot. I hope you get over that.
.
Flame away. Time for Ms Freud and I to have dinner. I probably won’t be back until tomorrow morning.
Oh, goody. Time for one more.
“Plus the basic difference is aggressor/defender. Germany was the aggressor. Indians not so much.” —–llpoh
Once again, the Indians fucked up. Their choice. Bad choice.
Had the Indians been more aggressive, especially in the early years (Plymouth Rock, etc.) and scalped the fuck out of every white person, they would probably have been in a much better position.
They had the choice to be aggressive. They pussied out. Their choice. Tough tittie.
Billy – as I have said, even surrendering did not save them. In general, Indians were not the aggressors. Cannot say the same re Germany. — Llpoh
Dude, don’t even. You know as well as I do that American Indians weren’t sitting around, communing with nature, smoking shit and minding their own business… they were some vicious, violent, bloodthirsty folks. Not only were they aggressors, but those they didn’t kill, they took into slavery or captured for fun stuff like burning alive later on and gang rape… also, in the American Southwest, cannibalism was practiced. Whether those eaten were the losers in some conflict or just their own dead is still open to debate..
http://books.google.com/books/about/Scalp_Dance.html?id=uADnfqhizbMC
http://books.google.com/books/about/Dog_Soldier_Justice.html?id=Xahdfncs8aIC
“The Germans, originally from Georgia, were bound for Colorado and a fresh start. Just moments after breaking camp that morning, the family was surprised by Indians. Within minutes the wagon was in flames, the mother, father, and two children were dead and scalped, and four daughters — Catherine, aged 17, Sophia, 12, and little Julia and Addie, aged 7 and 5 respectively — were carried off into captivity.”
“Catherine’s story is not a pretty one to relate. There are no Harlequin Romance endings here; no Dances With Wolves Hollywood nonsense; no silly sentimentality. Catherine was raped repeatedly during her captivity, as was her sister, Sophia; both were traded back and forth from one brave to the next; both were transformed into tribal prostitutes, their worth measured in horses. Each time the frail young women were forced to fetch wood or water for their respective lodges, each trembled in fear for each could expect to be raped as many as six times per trip.” — A Fate Worse Than Death, by Thomas Goodrich
http://www.counter-currents.com/2013/02/a-fate-worse-than-death/
Not… the… aggressors….
Uh huh… I’m sure they were all pillars of the community.
Sorry.. forgot this part. I am remiss in my duties.
“Based upon the accounts of the women I studied, here is a rough rule of thumb of what you might expect were you a young white woman captured by Indians of the High Plains:”
1. After witnessing the murder and mutilation of your loved ones, your clothes are ripped from your body; immediate and violent gang rape and sodomy commence by however many warriors are present, for however long they choose.
2. If you have crying children, these are often instantly killed by a sharp blow from a war club or by swinging them against rocks and dashing out their brains. Little children are also commonly scalped.
3. With a rope around your neck you are then led back to the Indian camp in your stunned condition, naked, bruised, barefoot, and bleeding from the vagina. When you fall from exhaustion, hunger or thirst, you are whipped mercilessly to your feet with rawhide or rope.
4. Once in the village you undergo a howl of taunts from the old people; women and children ridicule you and lash you with switches. Even the hordes of dogs seem against you as they snap, snarl and bite your legs
5. You are claimed by a powerful man, perhaps a chief, and, in addition to his own sexual demands, you become his personal prostitute; you are traded among the men of the village for valuables, including horses. Just because you are owned by one man does not shield you from the rape of others.
6. Beatings and back breaking work are piled upon you by increasingly cruel and jealous squaws. Grooves are worn into your shoulders from the straps of heavy loads; long lacerations from beatings refuse to heal and remain open wounds.
7. Abuse takes its toll and you age and gray rapidly during the months, or years, of slavery. You are filthy. You are infested with fleas and lice.
8. At night, after another day of sex-on-demand and back-breaking work, you dream of rescue . . . or death, whichever comes first; you dream of bugle notes sounding the charge as the U.S. Cavalry arrives to save you. Alas, little do you realize that should you hear those beautiful notes they will signal both your rescue and your death since Indians commonly kill their captives at the first sign of trouble.
9. If somehow you do manage to survive and are eventually rescued, you have a half-breed child in tow, you are pregnant again, you are emaciated, you are broken, you are sick, you are diseased, you look twenty years older than your actual age, you are mentally unhinged, you will never be normal again.
I agree – the Indians should have been a wee bit more aggressive at the start. But I suspect the outcome would have been the same.
What happened to Germans after the war is a direct result of what Germany and Germans did during the war. The way they were treated, especially by the Russians, should not have been unexpected.
If in a war of aggression my family was killed, I suspect that I would not accept the argument that “it was the government that did it, not me, I was only following orders, I was only supporting my govt, etc.” I would cast a very wide net in the search for revenge.
It seems post war Germans — civilians and military – want(ed) to use that defense.
I understand that by supporting govt aggression (by paying taxes) that I am not entirely innocent. The choices are bad. I do write letters, try to vote wisely, etc. so as to influence the govt, but in the end, I am unprepared to go to jail for failure to pay taxes or to abandon making a living.
Very few people will choose other than self-interest, and I am not one of them. But I cannot then be surprised when there are folks that are the victims of govt aggression that consider me guilty. It is understandable.
I never claimed that Indians were peaceful, fun loving sorts. They were very often incredibly brutal.
Fact is, the white man invaded America. Every step taken by them was an invasion. That there was more than a little resistance is not unexpected.
The Indians lost. End of story.
It is the actions after the loss/after surrender that is the issue. The Indian’s lost to the white man’s war of aggression. And even in victory, the white man continued to wipe out the Indian.
That is far different to what happened in Germany. Germany lost a war of aggression. Its victims unsurprisingly exacted a fair amount of revenge in the aftermath. Not right but not unexpected.
It’s LOSE !! Goddammit. – Stucky
Herr Schtuck, always bringing God into it. I love ya, man!
Llpoh,
You’re tap-dancing.
You attempt to portray Amerindians as a peaceful sort, minding their own business and Mean Old Whitey started smacking them around, stealing their lunch money, etc.. Maybe you didn’t come out and say it specifically, but that’s the picture you painted. I called you on it, backstopped my points, and now you backtrack and tap dance.
This whole conversation is about the atrocities committed by the “good” Allies against the “bad” Germans after cessation of hostilities – atrocities that you, yourself were unaware of until I broached the subject yesterday and I have been aware of for years. Your attitude of “welp, they deserved it” or at least “So?” is truly awful, given the history of your own people.
If I came out and said “Welp, the Injuns deserved what they got, bunch of bloodthirsty savage losers. Tough titty for them”, I would be hooted down as an EEVIL WAYCISS! at minimum. And you know it. Your ethnicity shields you, and you know that too.
Your whole point is that American Indians were here first, and that the continent belonged to them, when in fact that is the politically correct version. I can ask several uncomfortable questions that cast a shadow on that claim, most notably the discovery of Solutrean Points. Hell, even the History Channel aired a bit called “Who really discovered America?” Given their obvious leftist bent, that is huge. It is my belief that Europeans showed up in North America first, some 14,000+ years ago, given that Solutrean points bear no resemblance whatsoever to the equivalent points anywhere in Siberia and surrounding territories – which is where the ancestors of the American Indians came from. The closest tech they’ve found was located in France – same time period. And yes, they were seafaring people.
There is evidence that a meteor struck the North American glacial ice sheet and wiped out these early Europeans, since an entire species of tree in North America went extinct at the same time (not to mention deposits in the archaeological layer indicating that it happened). You guys didn’t show up until about 8,000 years ago or so – long after us.
So it’s open to debate just WHO “owned” North America first and who exactly was the invader… it could be argued that we were here first and then you all showed up later. We were just coming back for what was ours and you all were just squatters… so, you got what you deserved. Tough titty.
The 8,000 years number stuck in my head… not sure if it’s 100% accurate or not. The point is Europeans were here first, then you guys showed up. The number 8,000 isn’t important. It could be 9,000, 8,500, 9,100 or anything else… being off a bit in no way negates the point.
We were here first. Then you. That happened.
The Civil War still remains the worst in terms of US causalities than all other wars combined if I’m not mistaken, and we lost much more. But the number of deaths was 670K, or 2% of the population.
Over 1M Chinese died in the Korean war. But in terms of sheer numbers, WW2 and the aftermath, between the Germans and the Russians, let’s say Stalin killed 25 – 35 million of his own people. Let’s not forget 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis. Wikipedia states 60 million people total from WW2 and aftermath, or 2.5% of the world’s population.
The total killed by democide in the 20th century, 260 million. It’s easy to throw numbers around. My point is the US civil war and WW2 are probably the most significant turning points in US history, not counting the US Revolutionary War, of course.
I understand Stucky’s pre-occupation with the European war, especially if he’s writing in the first person regarding his lineage, but there were 2 other wars which came first, on this continent, and 2 others on the European, the Napoleonic and WW1.
WW2 just happens to be the most recent.
Seriously, two Germans claiming the Germans were mistreated, trying to ignore that they brought it on themselves via their aggressive war on various European nations is a real hoot.
If the Germans had not caused the death of 40 million people – 30 million of which were innocent civilians, and the rest were military folks defending their homeland against the German invaders, they would not have had the problems that had occurred after they were defeated. Not everyone is willing to forgive and forget.
And trying to compare what happened with the Indians is doubly funny. Yep, those dastardly Indians started it by, well, living on land the white folks wanted. Yep, if the Indians had just stepped aside and committed suicide they would not have been killed.
White man invaded their land. Everything happened after that. That is the way of the world. White man won. I have no issue with that. I have issue with the way the Indian was treated after white man had invaded, defeated, and negotiated peace treaties to end the hostilities.
How did the Indians come to be on that land? Fucked if I know. Someone was there first. Quite possibly the Indian took it from someone who took it from someone who took it from someone who were the first settlers. Or possibly Indians in one form or another were the first settlers.
Again compare that to the German situation – they invaded, killed 40 million people, got their asses kicked in the end, finally surrendered when they had no other choice (gee, sure am sorry about the 40 million), then there is surprise by German descendants that the nations they had brutalized took some payback for the 40 million killed. Seriously. What a hoot. War is hell, and so is the aftermath.
Humans do not respond rationally when you slaughter their families. Claiming “it was not my fault” does not always cut it in that situation. A certain percentage of folks will exact revenge if they can.
Heh… It’s not “two Germans”. It’s an American of German blood and one Austrian. That’s like me calling you a Mongolian.
And nobody said that you had to “commit suicide”. You all could have just went elsewhere and “chose” not to resist. Didn’t have to off yourselves in the process. That you say that, and then attribute it to us is pretty piss poor.
Your portrayal of American Indians as peaceful in the face of the white aggressor has been stomped to paste as well. “Not the aggressors” were your words, weren’t they? Yeah, that’s bullshit. Nice try, though. Not surprising, since that is the PC version taught these days and doesn’t come within 40 miles of what actually happened.
And I think it’s hilarious that you bitch about how you all were treated after peace treaties were negotiated, then pooh pooh us for bitching about how the Germans were treated after peace treaties were negotiated… derp. At least you guys GOT invited to the “peace treaties” and had some say in the matter.. can’t say that about the Germans in WWI where they got blamed for everything, which is also bullshit.. and the direct causation of WWII, so there’s that.
Germans had resided in “eastern Europe” for thousands of years. They were then expelled at gunpoint – and all that goes with that – in an episode of mass ethnic cleansing. But somehow, according to you, the comparison between what happened to the Indians and what happened to the Germans (12 to 16 million of them – most of which had nothing to do with WWII) is not valid. Again, derp.
Your point about whites “invading” “your” land is also in question. And, since your whole argument hinges on the concept of ownership – “your” land – the whole point of “invasion” is in question as well..
You end with moral equivocating. Maintaining what happened to your people was “bad” but what happened to my people is just the way the cookie crumbles…
I’m not seeing where you’re making any headway here…