Honour in Combat

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Now now, you knew what I meant! No doubt their intentions were impure, but the fight that resulted was certainly started by them, and was certainly not "unfair" in the sense that the Allies did anything particularly illegal or unprovoked.

Although I rather liked the spider story. You've been absent these parts far too long. Once CMC is out and if you are still dabbling with the actual playing of CM, perhaps we might cross swords. It would be an honour to be figuratively garotted by you some bleak autumn night.

PS - I am sure some uncouth soul will be along to tell you that you should have used "web" instead of "net", but I knew perectly well what you meant. I am now picturing Hitler with eight legs balancing precariously on such a web with an eight legged Stalin scrambling down to gobble him up. [/QB]

Eight legs plus two pulps, plus two jaws, all controlled simultaneously. I am fascinated by spiders. Such superior designs.

No not unprovoked. One of very few conflicts where one side (allies and neutrals, including Soviets) can actually truthfully claim to have done all that could be done to deflect armed conflict ("Half a mo'"). Regrettably, the disinclination to go to war is in our time more often used as insult or ridicule ("Peace in our time") than as a compliment and display of uncommon quality. Which wounds me.

I haven't really been absent. Been wandering the threads, looking for any need of me, but none have had any, and so I have remained silent. Curiosity about the German armed forces have ventured very little beyond the big cats and big guns as of late. And I am the sage of little things and detail, not big cats. I'm not much into the Syrian campaign either I must say, and so I wait.

I'll be honoured and privileged to take you on, but you must play the Canadians, and I the Germans, in Normandy. I'll even play the 12th crack babies fighting the 3rd, giving us a chance to make better history than what was. No defenceless Canadian kids gunned down behind churches.

Web, net - only Anglosaxons ever notice such subtle differences, and as they are so very rarely uncouth I believe I might have escaped the challenge. Even if I hadn't, I know now from Rune that you drink beer with soda pops in them. This has donated a hitherto unknown nuance to the Anglosaxon profile, and I dare say it does not speak to your advantage among civilised nations. Kofi Anan will be most upset.

Cheers

Dandelion

[John Kettler]

John D. Salt,

Did you miss the specific mentions of, inter alia, the Bundes Archiv, the official Soviet archives, etc., as well as the quotes from named people who were there? I'm sorry the massacre site owner didn't list his sources, but that's hardly my fault. My comments apply to materials after the Remagen piece, too.

Bacque may well be a liar, but have any of you bothered to crosscheck Lindbergh's

WARTIME JOURNALS against the purported quotes (mit page numbers) on the VHO site? As noted, the crosschecking I did indicated that no fudging or distortion had taken place, based on a limited sample set.

For the record, as a general rule the Allies (less Russia) were not in the same league as the Germans when it came to warcrimes, but the postwar fate of large numbers of German POWs, coupled with reports of torturing confessions from prisoners, definitely strikes me as a huge blot on the shield. For large scale Allied criminal behavior, though, the PTO seems to be the main site.

This said, it in no way exonerates or balances away the vast scope and scale of what the Germans did. As I said before, I detest warcrimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing and terminal eugenics. Period. Am therefore getting REALLY tired of ceaseless attempts by some here to paint me/threaten to paint me as a Nazi apologist.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 11, 2006, 01:53 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

John D. Salt,

Did you miss the specific mentions of, inter alia, the Bundes Archiv, the official Soviet archives, etc., as well as the quotes from named people who were there?

Duncan's text states that there are archives in Germany and Russia that receive many enquiries each year about German servicemen still missing from WW2. Passing mention of the existence of an archive is not what any scholar would understand by reference to a source. Yet you make the amazing claim that Duncan cites "authoritative sources". Unless there is a whole bunch of notes lurking somewhere in a pop-up window my browser suppresses, he does no such thing.

Now, as to the "first-hand quotes"; where are these, I ask myself? There is a scholarly tradition of citations of the form "Professor fFarnes-Barnes, personal communication", but this is used sparingly, and only in the case that personal communication has, in fact, occurred. Duncan does not claim that the individuals he named communicated personally with him. I do not know how you conclude that these are "first-hand quotes". They look to me to have the same degree of scholarly soundness as "A friend of a friend", or "A bloke down the pub told me".

As to "etc.", I have no idea what you are talking about, and suspect that you have simply run out of things to mistake for references to sources.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

I'm sorry the massacre site owner didn't list his sources, but that's hardly my fault.

I'm not saying it is. It is however very clearly your fault to seek to misrepresent the site as containing "firsthand quotes and authoritative sources cited".

You seem to be committing this kind of careless error of fact with remarkable frequency in this thread.

You said that aerial bombardment of cities in WW2 was a war-crime, which is false.

You claimed that USAAF bombing was substantially more accurate than Bomber Command's, which is false.

You said that the use of Q-Ships was against the laws of war, which is false.

You said that Dorosh has a mannequin dressed in an SS uniform, which is false.

You said that the U-boat skippers involved in the Laconia incident were convicted at Nuremburg, which is false.

Most of these you have been corrected on, and in at least two cases you have accepted the correction, but are you really entitled to demand that other people take your arguments seriously when you are so lamentably slapdash in putting them together?

I shall return to this point further on.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Bacque may well be a liar, but have any of you bothered to crosscheck Lindbergh's

WARTIME JOURNALS against the purported quotes (mit page numbers) on the VHO site? As noted, the crosschecking I did indicated that no fudging or distortion had taken place, based on a limited sample set.

This indicates merely that the VHO can transcribe accurately (and cite sources; score one for scholarship). Let me do a spot of transcription from my own selection of bits from Lindbergh:

"Taxi to Capitol for appointment with Byrd. We went into Garner's office adjoining the chamber and talked for fifteen minutes about the tension which is developing in Europe and the course the United States should take if war should start over there. We are both anxious to avoid having this country pushed into a European war by British and Jewish propaganda, of which there is already too much."

"Walked to Bill Castle's home at 6:00—about ten minutes from the Anchorage. Fulton Lewis was the only other person there. The three of us had dinner together and discussed the European situation and the action this country should take if war breaks out over there. We are disturbed about the effect of the Jewish influence in our press, radio, and motion pictures."

"Most of the Jewish interests in the country are behind war, and they control a huge part of our press and radio and most of our motion pictures. There are also the "intellectuals," and the "Anglo-philes," and the British agents who are allowed free rein, the international financial interests, and many others."

"It is difficult for me to understand Flynn's attitude. He feels as strongly as I do that the Jews are among the major influences pushing this country toward war."

"The amazing thing is not that we are so close to war but that we have been able to hold the war forces back as long as we have. Their ranks include the American government, the British government, the Jews, and the major portion of the press, radio, and motion-picture facilities of the country."

Are you still impressed by his trustworthiness as a factual source? Or might he have had some reason for spinning the scuttlebutt he heard to suit his own ends? The idea of seeking to draw some kind of moral equivalence between the Nazis and the United States is not exactly a novelty for right-wing extremists.

On similar lines, I note that the allegations of torture being used on those accused at the Nuremburg trials come from the VHO site, which quotes, at second hand, William Langer and Joe McCarthy. You are apparently happy to accept these utterances uncritically, and take it as an established fact that torture was used.

Should we take anything Langer says at face value? True, he got off his pre-war conviction for fraud on a re-trial. One might perhaps think that his crackpot claim that Winston Churchill fought against the USA in the Spanish-American war was just his little joke. But I think when he says of the Nuremburg trials:

"These war-trials were decided on in Moscow and they are carried on under Moscow principles. These trials were essentially the same as the mass trials held in the 1930s by Stalin when Vyshinsky used treason trials to liquidate his internal enemies. At Nuremberg the Communist used war crimes trials to liquidate their external enemies. It is the Communist avowed purpose to destroy the Western World which is based on property rights"

[source: ]http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/betrayalp10.htm]

…one might think that he is entitled to his opinion. Or, more rationally, one may think he is a barking moonbat of the far right whose statements should be treated with the extreme caution usually reserved for puffer-fish.

As to Langer's pal "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy, apart from his disgraceful and insane behaviour during the witch-hunt years, anyone who has read Mike Reynolds' excellent "The Devil's Adjutant" will know that McCarthy was the attorney who defended Joachim Pieper over the Baugnez (Malmedy) massacre. Maybe you imagine that defence lawyers have never tried to get their clients off with false charges of mistreatment, maybe you think that an SS thug like Pieper would not stoop to telling fibs to save his skin, but I don't happen to share either opinion.

Originally posted by John Kettler:

This said, it in no way exonerates or balances away the vast scope and scale of what the Germans did. As I said before, I detest warcrimes, genocide, ethnic cleansing and terminal eugenics. Period. Am therefore getting REALLY tired of ceaseless attempts by some here to paint me/threaten to paint me as a Nazi apologist.

Detestation of genocide isn’t much of a qualification. Holocaust deniers hate genocide so much they even wish it out of existence.

Consider McIvan's elegant and scholarly refutation of Stalin's Organist's canard about Kiwis massacring a German field hospital. It clearly took vastly more effort to produce than did the original mendacious allegation. I have seen the allegation repeated several times on the net, and not always so promptly or so well refuted, so I'm sure that plenty of people less capable of critical thinking than McIvan have come to accept it as true.

Now, here are two techniques that I have observed are favourites with holocaust deniers on the web (and indeed elsewhere).

The first I shall call "argument by exhaustion". The unfortunate fact is that fools can make more assertions than wise men can check and correct. This is a fact that Nazi apologists rely on; eventually, people simply become too fatigued to refute their nonsense, and it becomes accepted by the mentally lazy as if it were the truth. A classic example is Herr Doktor Goebbels' assertion that it was the British who first invented the concentration camp in the Boer War; not true, but so widely repeated by now that it may as well be. Another example is George Hardy, a Jew-hater and holocaust-denier who used to (and for all I know still does) inhabit the soc.history.world-war-ii group. He would frequently produce some piece of abject tommyrot, such as, for example, the allegation that Winston Churchill deliberately starved half the population of the Netherlands in 1944. When challenged to produce his sources, he would bluster, whinge, dodge, and, eventually, once his hide had been nailed firmly to the wall, fall silent. A few weeks or months later, he would come out with precisely the same line, as if the refutation had never happened.

The second technique I shall call "the respectability fork". This seeks to draw real historians into debate on the absurd claims of the holocaust deniers. The real historian is caught in something of a cleft stick. Taking the time to refute their arguments item by item implicitly confers respectability on them (IIRC there is a discussion of this in "Telling lies about Hitler"), and, what's more, they then ignore the refutation and proceed to "argument by exhaustion". Refusing to enter into debate with them denies them the intellectual respectability they crave (and cannot obtain by other means), but leaves it open to them to claim that "our opponents cannot answer these points".

You may not be deliberately using "argument by exhaustion", but with the steady stream of slapdash and incorrect claims you have made, it would be hard to tell the difference between your postings and those from someone who was. You have specifically demanded that your interlocutors engage with the purported facts you have taken from pro-Nazi sources. You may not be deliberately using "the repectability fork", but it would be hard to tell the difference between your postings and those from someone who was.

Many of the accusations you have made I have seen made repeatedly by Nazi sympathisers, and many of the sources you quote with apparent approval are specifically Nazi sources.

I, of course, being full of the milk of human kindness, am always willing to apply O'Hanlon's razor in cases such as these. But you really cannot be surprised if people refuse to engage in debate with you when you demonstrate such a staggering lack of basic critical thinking in relation to material from a holocaust-denial site.

Having given you a pretty full explanation of why I think you are committing some pretty elementary errors, I do not propose to continue this debate any further. I agree entirely with Andreas, and if you cannot engage your critical faculties sufficiently to question the stuff promulgated by the VHO, I really have nothing further to say to you.

There are doubtless adequately-documented cases of war crimes by Allied forces, and there may indeed be considerable interest in discussing them, but I doubt that anything useful will ever come of golloping up the vapourings of Bartling, Lindbergh, David Duke, and senators Langer and McCarthy with wide-eyed credulity.

All the best,

John.

[Wisbech_lad]

Back to the original point (honour in combat)

Because it works. The most successful strategy in repeated games (using "game" in the theoretical sense) is "tit for tat but start out nice" Basically - do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but don't turn the other cheek.

ISTR a good anecdotal example from Jary 18th platoon, where they treat medically a wounded german officer, and the information gets back to his unit - who promptly surrender. Or in "By Tank to Normandy" where 1,000-1,500 germans surrender in one town because the UK commander agrees to let them march out with weapons, giving the german commander "face"

Plus the insurance policy if you have to surrender.

Note that the Germans, in the East, deliberately ordered "start out nasty", which started off a cycle of tit-for-tat.

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by McIvan:

I cannot let that pass, it is not even remotely close to what I understand to have occurred (if anyone can know that sixty years on). This is, however, being typed at work without reference materials to hand.

Um...apart from my comment on hte Kiwi's being doped up, yuor account is merely more detailed than mine, and is pretty much what I find when I look at what I was recalling it from - "Myth and REality - the New Zealand Soldier in WWII", John McLeod, Heinman Reid 1989.

I do not think it fair to tarnish the 2nd NZ Division with this hospital massacre connotation.

Why not? It might not have been deliberate, but it did happen.

I refer you to some comments from the book mentioned above, pages 86 and 87 which deal with this event:

No chances were being taken. The second and suceeding waves put a few shots in any nearby bodies, "just to make sure". One New Zealander lying wounded on hte ground desperately struggled to his feet, as bayonets were being "stuck in everybody, dead or alive, and it was hard to distinguish friend from foe". It was of little consequence whether the enemy were resisting, surrendering or fleeing. One member of 19 Battalion saw two German soldiers shot while attempting to surrender. Another saw wounded Germans picked up and tossed into burnign trucks."

and

The German response to the break out was particularly bitter. They considered that the new Zealanders had violated the rules of war. The Afrika Korps War Diary was particularly harsh: Elements of 21 Panzer Division repelling attempts to break through are involved in bitter defensive fighting in the evening. III/104 Rifle Regiment which was being attacked by hte New Zealanders suffers particularly heavy losses. During these actions, violatoin of international law, such as the slaughter of wounded, etc, occur.

The Germans were upset at finding multiple wounds in their dead. An advanced Dressing Station had been overrun, and wounded lying in slit trenches had been killed.

My comment about them being "doped up" was probably a garbled memory of the dressing down received by the NZ officer captured on 12 July who was told

the New Zealanders no longer fought likre "gentlemen" but "fileld themselves up with cognac and fight like Bolsheviks".

This series of comments is anootated with several notes from war archives, personal accounts, a couple of published works and the 28 Bn history.

I think it is a good action to mention in response to an enquirey on "honour in war"!!

[Andreas]

An advanced dressing station and some medical transport are emphatically not a field hospital. Wounded lying in slit trenches are not patients in a field hospital.

Accusations of enemy soldiers being drunk during a charge are made by:

- Germans against Russians

- Germans against Kiwis

- Russians against Germans

To a degree that I rather think it is rubbish and a general attempt to denigrate the enemy. I am not sure what adrenalin rush in these situations looks like and hopefully will never find out, but I would not be surprised if it appeared similar to being drunk.

All the best

Andreas

[John Kettler]

John D Salt,

I went back and looked at the Duncan Atrocities and Massacres of World War 2 site, as per the link, and under How Many? found this

"In 1997, around 1.1 million German soldiers were still officially listed as missing. According to the recently opened Soviet archives, which have been proved to be extremely precise and detailed, the Red Army captured 2,389,560 German soldiers. Of these, 423,168 died in captivity. In October, 1951, the West German government stated in the United Nations that 1.1 million soldiers had not returned home. In other words, we were led to believe they had died in Soviet camps. If we subtract the proven number of deaths in Soviet camps from the missing in Germany we arrive at the figure of around 677,000. Where are these men?. They must have been interned by the western Allies, the greatest majority being held in American and French camps where they died in their thousands through deliberate starvation, disease and hard work."

Let's spot check the math, which according to what I see stated here derives from a) the Federal German Government in an official statement to the UN and formerly classified Soviet military archives, both fairly significant sources.

2,389,560 German POWs taken by Russians (minus)

423,168 German POWs who died in captivity (equals)

1,966,392 German POWs returned to Germany from Russia. What we don't know, unfortunately, is the date the last German POW was released from Russia.

This, in turn, makes it difficult to properly interpret the significance of the October 1951 FRG official statement that 1.1 million men had not returned.

From what I can recall, many of the German POWs were held for only a few years, but others were in Russia much longer, and some, like Luftwaffe

super ace Erich Hartmann, were held for 10 years, IOW 4 years after the FRG statement. Whoever the source or sources were for the How Many? section, the methodology employed in figuring out how many German POWs supposedly died in nonRussian Allied hands was to take the 1,100,00 missing, subtract the known 423,168 dead in Russian captivity, arriving at 676,832 (rounded up to 677,000) POWs who died while in nonRussian Allied hands.

While at first blush this might seem like a reasonable approach, we don't know a) the official FRG figure on total Germans taken POW by the Allies, only the, er, remaining balance, how many and what fraction of German POWs had been repatriated by the time of the official FRG statement, thus c) how many ultimately came home from Russia when it was all said and done.

To further confuse matters, some who went to Russia stayed there after their release, and some wound up in East Germany, therefore presumably weren't counted by the FRG as having been returned, either.

My take? If we deem the known numbers to be sound, the high value of German POW deaths in nonRussian Allied captivity may well be in the almost 700,000 range given, but for the reasons above (and maybe a few I missed outright!), they could well be much lower. What we really need in order to figure out the truth are accurate POW return numbers, preferably by year, total POWs

returned (broken down by returning country) and solid info on how many released POWs stayed in Russia and East Germany (broken out separately).

Can any of you supply these critical missing numbers?

Elsewhere on that same site under Webling, Dachau and several others, specific individuals and/or

specific positions in identified units are given, in some cases with their contemporary statements quoted. I understand the same holds true in the Italy section as well. In fairness to your point, though, I did confuse a quoted direct order to put a German officer up against the wall with his men

with what later happened at Dachau. My mistake and duly noted as such.

These and many other atrocities are discussed in this two page thread on the Axis History Forum, including cases where named U.S. individuals slaughtered POWs, were court martialed and convicted of murder. Note particularly the documented shoot the SS on sight order for the 328th Regiment of the 26th Infantry Division at the bottom of page 2 of the link.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=8947

This'll have to do for now, seeing as how it's 6:28 a.m. PST here and I've been awake since 7:30

a.m. PST yesterday, and got less than 3.5 hours of sleep in my last sleep period. Am therefore not about to even attempt to deal with your dissection of Lindbergh and his views until I'm much better rested and lucid.

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Okay, I'm dead tired, but my Google fu still works!

Turns out Wikipedia has a large section under Atrocities of World War II on Allied

atrocities here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_atrocities

The first external link to the Dachau portion is of particular interest because it contains multiple, specifically identified quotes and period photography shot during the event. You can actually see the gunned down SS POWs who moments before were standing, hands on their heads, before the wall. The coverage is extensive and detailed, drawing on statements from both sides and, I believe, some of the liberated KZ survivors.

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/SoldiersKilled.html

Regards,

John Kettler

[John Kettler]

Here is a draft research paper which looks at all available sources circa 2004 in an attempt to establish the likely range of German POWs lost while in nonRussian Allied captivity. It looks at Bacque's writings, points out huge methodology and document interpretation/use deficiencies therein, cites a 22 volume FRG official study on the matter, and provides us with a useful data point on when the last official POW return from Russia took place--1956. The Allied policy change material presented is frighteningly reminiscent of the dodges the U.S has used to redefine torture, hold without charge, reclassify prisoners into unprotected or less protected categories, etc.

http://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/for/us-germany-pow.html

Students of what the site owner here calls

"hemoclysm" will find our topic under Section 4D.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

Regards,

John Kettler

[Baneman]

Interesting thread.

However, I am confused as to why some board members label others "Nazi-apologists" for implying/inferring/accusing the Allies of war crimes.

The fact that the Allies did commit some atrocities does not mean that the Axis didn't. And so far, none of the posts about Allied war crimes have attempted to state that.

[painfbat]

I would like to ask Andreas to comment on 2 German writers:

On seems to even have worked for the Bundeswehr, but has his own "fansite" on VHO, so I quess what you'll think about him. It's Prof. Dr. Franz W. Seidler(Verbrechen an der Wehrmacht).

The other is Will Berthold(Parole Heimat-Deutsche Kriegsgefangene in Ost und West). I couldn't link him with VHO or something like that.

I was surching on Ebay for some Divisional books when I met there books. Maybe you could give a comment om both so I know what I can aspect.

====================================

BTW I'm looking for

DIE GESCHICHTE DER 22. INFANTERIE-DIVISION, 1939-1940.

Auteur; F.A. van Metzsch. 1952.

If anyone can help me out.....

=====================================

Cheers

[McIvan]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by McIvan:

I cannot let that pass, etc etc....

Um...apart from my comment on hte Kiwi's being doped up, yuor account is merely more detailed than mine...</font>

[Bigduke6]

What an interesting thread!

1. The Dachau liberation probably counts as a war crime, but that's extenuating circumstances if ever there was one/were them. In the latter stages of the war concentration camps were de facto death camps; disease and starvation were killing inmates pretty much as efficiently as gas or bullets. There aren't too many words to describe the scene that greeted the U.S. Joes breaking into the camp, but one of them has to be "horrific". You would have to be inhuman not to react to hundreds if not thousands of corpses killed, effectively, by slow toture. And not soldiers; women, old men, and children. This was evidence of real crime against humanity, a violation of so many human taboos that the normal "rules of warfare" must have seemed tossed out the window long ago.

It wasn't battle, but frankly, I'm more than a bit suprised discipline held in the 45th Division so that only a relatively few S.S. types were shot dead in retailation. The instinctual reaction must have been to kill any one even remotely connected with the concentration camp's conditions, immediately.

From a "tribal" point of view, that reaction is close to justified. Any people responsible for something like a concentration camp, even marginally, almost certainly deserve to die, so that such a thing doesn't get repeated to any one, anywhere. Not as punishment or as a warning to others, but because people who do things like that have no place in any even vaugely human society.

So yes the Americans shot some S.S. at Dachau, but no it was not in cold blood. And if any were tried for shooting the S.S., I can't see how a fair jury would convict them.

Be it far from me to argue the Soviets were more concerned with law and order than the Americans, that's not the case. But the Red Army approach to concentration camp personnel seems to me to be a whole lot more reasonable: Kill every one except the officers, whom you interrogate, and then kill. If any one later on accuses you of a war crime, explain that any one involved in running a concentration camp deserves to die.

Maybe I am just overreacting to concentration camps, I dunno.

[John Kettler]

BigDuke6,

If you waded through the whole of the external link I posted regarding Dachau, it would appear that "a few," based on the approving statement of Buechner, the 45th's divisional medical officer and later, coauthor of HITLER'S ASHES and THE LANCE OF CHRIST

(second one's probably off a bit on title) and the sworn statement of a German who was there to the German Red Cross, amounted to hundreds of men, many of whom were recently combat wounded in the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front, and had just arrived themselves, to include the senior officer present, who was shot and killed.

From what I can tell, only a few of those present were actually members of the Totenkopfverbande, professional KZ staff. Thus, the Americans' and later the liberated's righteous fury was expended to slaughter those who hadn't done the crime, as it were.

Turning now to the larger picture, as given in the Wikipedia articles, it's quite clear that Americans commited a number of warcrimes, that high command was not only aware of them, but actually and knowingly covered them up. There were a few cases in which the perpetrators were

properly tried and convicted, though punishments were also overturned. Wikipedia seems weak on British doings (covers nothing but the bombings), but does touch on POW killings by Maquis units, a topic previously not covered in this thread.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 13, 2006, 01:14 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[John Kettler]

John D Salt,

Concerning the British use of Q-ships, I did not say their use was a warcrime. Rather, I said the British insisted on eating their cake and having it too by demanding that the Germans follow the stop and search rules when employing commerce raiders and U-boats, then using Q-ships against them while made vulnerable by following the rules of war. To compound their hypocrisy, at the same time, the British were operating auxiliary merchant cruisers of their own, using them to carry war materiel, then screaming bloody murder when they were attacked.

I have previously cited the egregious example of the auxiliary/armed merchant cruiser Lusitania, which the German government observed and photographed loading munitions in New York harbor, notified the U.S. State Department of the fact, informed it action would be taken if the vessel sailed with war materiel aboard, and even paid for a bunch of warning ads to travelers, ads the U.S. government managed to block in all but a few cases, notably the DES MOINES REGISTER.

The Lusitania was then sailed as an "innocent passenger liner" into a known U-boat area, at deliberately reduced speed (one boiler lit,to supposedly "preserve coal"), and was to be met by a destroyer to escort her through the U-boat zone. Instead, the destroyer, over her skipper's objections, was ordered away by the Admiralty, and the Lusitania met her fate. To this day you'll still see documentaries describing the treacherous German torpedoing and sinking of of the hapless liner and many aboard her.

We have the ship's manifests, though, showing the considerable munitions carried, we have the letters from the German government warning State, we have the ads, and we have some of the munitions

(artillery fuzes recovered in the hundreds) from the wreck. The History Channel has shown some of this, but still runs the old, incorrect shows as well.

Said one high officer who was in British naval HQ at the time of the Lusitania affair, "It was a damned dirty business; we all felt soiled." Churchill had no such qualms, neatly revealing his true agenda when he said: "Supreme excellence in strategy lies in the sudden introduction of a powerful ally." The Lusitania sinking was thus one of a series of measures intended to bring America into World War I on the side of the British, by so outraging the American public over the slaughter of its own people that they would demand war. The release of the Zimmerman telegram, in which the Germans offered Mexico much of the U.S. Southwest in return for an alliance, was another such "active measure." So successful were these actions that much the same was done in the run up to World War II. Please see Griffin's THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND and Simpson's LUSITANIA for the truth so carefully hidden that even today most don't know it about the Lusitania's true nature and the facts about her sinking.

As for U.S. vs. RAF bombing accuracy, I think I can fairly assert that you are guilty of cherrypicking the data. I was discussing the comparative delivery accuracy through much of the war, whereas you handpicked one example of what the late war state of the art performance was in electronically aided night bombing. Where I come from, that's called lying with statistics, and I deem it most unfair of you to use such a tactic in order to attack my credibility and demean me personally.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ February 13, 2006, 05:41 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Andreas]

For those interested in what really happened at Dachau:

HEADQUARTERS SEVENTH ARMY

Office of the Inspector General, Seventh Army (CP)

APO 758, US Army

JMW/iw

8 June 1945

SECRET

SUBJECT: Investigation of Allied Mistreatment of German Guards at Dachau.

TO: Commanding General, Seventh Army (CP), APO 758, US Army.

I. AUTHORITY

1. This investigation was conducted by Lt. Colonel Joseph Whitaker, IGD, Assistant Inspector General, Seventh Army, pursuant to the directive of the Commanding General, Seventh Army, issued by the Chief of Staff 2 May 1945.

II SUBJECT MATTER

2. German guards at the Concentration Camp at Dachau, Germany, were alleged to have been mistreated at the hands of American troops, and such is the subject matter of this report (Exhibit "A")

III FACTS

(NOTE: Numbers in parenthesis at ends of paragraphs refer to supporting evidence, a list of which follows the last page of this report.)

3. The German Dachau Internment Camp was overrunn 29 April 1945 by elements of the 3d Bn, 157th Infantry, 45th Infantry Division. A small party of the 42d Division also entered the area from the front at approximately the same time. (1)

4. At the entrance to the back area of the Dachau prison grounds, four German soldiers surrendered to Lt William P Walsh 0-414901, in command of Company "I" 157th Infantry. These prisioners Lt. Walsh ordered into a box car, where he personally shot them. Pvt Albert C. Pruitt, 34573708, Company "I", 157th Infantry, then climbed into the box car where these Germans were on the floor moaning and apparently still alive, and finished them off with his rifle. (2)

5. After entry into the Dachau Camp area, Lt Walsh segregated from surrendered prisoners of war those who were identified as SS Troops. (3)

6. Such segregated prisoners of war were marched into a separate enclosure, lined up against the wall and shot down by American troops, who were acting under the orders of Lt Walsh. A light machine gun, a BAR, carbines and either a pistol or a submachine gun were used. Seventeen of such prisoners of war were killed and others wounded. (4)

7. Lt Jack Bushyhead, 0-1284822, executive officer of Company "I" participated with Lt Walsh in the handling of SS men and during the course of the shooting personally fired his weapon at the prisoners.

8. Lt Daniel F Drain, 0-2006047, acting under the orders of Lt. Walsh, directed men under his command to set up the machine gun which was used, but did not personally fire or give orders to fire. (6)

9. Lt. Howard E. Buechner 0-435481, Battalion Surgeon, visitied the area and saw the bodies after the shooting. He observed that some were still alive, but made no examination to determine whether or not their lives could be saved, and did nothing to aid them. (7)

10. Lt. Drain witnessed physical abuse of prisoners of war by released inmates of the Camp and did nothing to stop it. (Cool

11. After entry into the camp, personnel of the 42d division discovered the presence of guards, presumed to be SS men, in a tower to the left of the main gate of the inmate stockade. This tower was attacked by Tec 3 Henry J. Wells, 39271327, Headquarters Military Intelligence Services, ETO, covered and aided by a party under them by the guards in the tower. A number of Germans were taken prisoner; after they were taken and within a few feet of the tower from which they were taken, they were shot and killed. (9)

12. Considerable confusion exists in the testimony as to the particuars of this shooting; however Wells, German interrogator for the 222d Infantry, states that he had lined these Germans up in double rank preparatory to moving them out; that he saw no threatening gesture; but he shot into them after some other American soldiers, whose identities are unknown, started shooting them. (10)

13. Lt Colonel Fellenz was entering the door of the tower at the time of this shooting, took no part in it, and testified that he could not have stopped it. (11)

14. After the camp was taken and was somewhat settled down, two Germans were shot by inmates who used the service rifle of Pfc Peter J. Demarzo, 42175967, Company "L", 157th Infantry, 45th Division, who was then on guard duty. Although his company commander, Lt. Lawrence R. Steward, Jr, 0-1060658, was informed of such a happening, no investigation has ben made in the company to determine the facts or whether or not such soldier or other members of the guard should receive disciplinary action. (12)

IV DISCUSSION

15. Troops entering this camp area passed the famous train with its cars of dead bodies. Inside the camp other indications of Nazi treatment were evident. The sight of these numerous victims would naturally produce strong mental reaction on the part of both officers and men. Such circumstances are extenuating, but are the only extenuating facts found. (13)

16. Lt Walsh testified that the SS men were segregated in order to properly guard them, and were then fired upon because they started moving towards the guards. However, the dead bodies were located along the wall against which they had been lined up, they were killed along the entire line, although Lt Walsh only claims those on one flank moved, and a number of witnesses testified that it was generally "understood" that these prisoners were to be shot when they were being segregated. These facts contradict the defensive explanation given by Lt Walsh (14)

17. The bodies of the dead Germans in two instances showed severed finger [sic], in other instances crushed skulls. There is no evidence that the SS men were multilated before they were shot. When the Inspector viewed these bodies numerous inmates of the camp had access to yard and grounds where they were; it is probably that they had such access at all times subsequent to the liberation of the camp and possible that the crushed skulls and severed fingers observed by the Inspector resulted from visits of such persons after the shooting. (15)

18. It is obvious that the Americans present when the guards were shot at the tower labored under much excitement. However, Wells could speak German fluently, he knew no shots had been fired at him in his attacj on the tower, he had these prisoners lined up, he saw no threatening gesture or act. It is felt that his shooting into them was entirely unwarrantedl the whole incident smacks of execution similar to the other incidents described in this report (16)

19. The Inspector was unable to indentify other persons who also fired in this killing. The confusion of evidence surrounding the tower incident also extends to the number killed there, and the witnesses gave widely varying estimates. The Inspector counted six bodies in a group at the tower on 3 May 1945, and at least one other body in accounted for as having been washed away in the canal, making a tentative total of seven. (17)

20. It is felt that a distinction should be made between the enlisted men who shot prisoners of war while acting under orders of a responsible officera and those two enlisted men, Pvt Pruitt and Tec 3 Wells, who acted under their own volition.

21. The evidence as to the shooting of two Germans by inmates using the rifle of PFC De Marzo indicates a failure of such soldier in his duties as a sentry, an apparent lack of training and discipline in guard duty on the part of such soldier, his associate and the sergeant of the guard; and neglect on the part of the company commander to make any inquiry or fact finding investigation into the circumstances also reflects upon the administrative functioning of such company (12)

22. Lt. Col Felix L. Sparks, 0-386497, now with Assembly Area Command, was in command of the 3d Battalion, 157th Infantry, during the Dachau operation. There is testimony that at the beginning of this operation he fired his pistol into the body of a German lying on the ground; there is testimony that he was present or nearby when Lt Walsh ordered four prisoners of war into a box car where they were shot; later when Lt Walsh segregated from other prisoners those identified as SS, Lt Colonel Sparks was in the immediate vicinity and according to testimony was the one who stopped the shooting of those segregated. The Inspector was unable to find any confirmation of the statement of one witness that Lt Col Sparks fired his pistol; there is no proof that he had actual knowledge of the box car shooting although nearby; nor that he knew of the segregation of the SS men or the purpose thereof. Because it has been impossible to contact him for his testimony conclusions as to his responsibility are not drawn in this report. (1Cool

V. CONCLUSIONS

23. German soldiers after their surrender as prisoners of war to American troops were summarily shot and killed by such troops.

24. Four of such prisoners of war were shot by Lt William P. Walsh, 0-414901, Hq, 157th Infantry, 45th Division, and by Pvt Albert C. Pruitt, 34573708, Company "I", 157th Infantry, 45th Division.

25. Germans identified as SS were segregated from other prisoners of war, marched into an enclosed yard, lined against the wall, and summarily executed under the personal supervision and orders of Lt Walsh. Seventeen of those segregated were killed.

26. Lt Jack Busheyhead, 0-1284822, Company "I", 157th Infantry, 45th Division, an executive officer to Lt Walsh, assisted such officer, and in addition personally participated in the execution of the seventeen.

27. Lt Daniel F. Drain, 0-2006047, Company "I", 157th Infantry, 45th Division, assisted by directing his men to set up the machine gun used in the execution, knowing the unauthorized purpose to which it was to be put.

28. Lt Drain witnessed abuse of prisoners of war without taking steps to stop or prevent it.

29. Lt Howard E. Buechner, 0-435481, 3d Bn, 157th Infantry, 45th Division, violated his duty both as a physician and a soldier in ignoring the possibility of saving the wounded by still living prisoners who had been shot.

30 Tec 3 Harry J. Wells, 39271327, Headquarters Military Intelligence Services, ETO, wantonly shot and killed prisoners of war in his custody.

31. Inmates shot and killed two guards, using a service rifle which they took from a soldier on guard duty, one Pfc PeterJ. De Marzo, 42175967, Company "L", 157th Infantry, 45th Division. No investigation of the circumstances was made in such soldier's company although his commanding officer, Lt Lawrence R. Steward, Jr., 0-1060658, Company "L", 157th Infantry, 45th Division, was informed of the incident.

VI RECOMMENDATIONS

32. In view of the transfer of the 42d and the 45th divisions, it is recommended that this report be forwarded to the Commanding General, Third Army, for such action as he may deem appropriate.

(signed)

Joseph M. Whitaker

Lt. Colonel, IGD,

Asst. Inspector General,

Seventh Army

9 Incl:

9-Ex "A" to "I" incl

APPROVED: (signed)

C. K. Leerer

Colonel, IGD,

Inspector General,

Seventh Army

__APPROVED

WADE H. HAISLIP

Lieutenant General, USA

Commanding.

SECRET

As posted by Rob -WSSOB here:

Linky

Hundreds? Err, no.

Wounded from a hospital? Err, no.

John also fails to realise that the SS-T division and the KZ Guards belonged to the same organisation, and that SS-T regularly exchanged personnel with the KZ Guards. So you could be a wounded soldier just returning from the East and a professional KZ Guard at the same time.

Regards

Andreas

[Michael Dorosh]

32. In view of the transfer of the 42d and the 45th divisions, it is recommended that this report be forwarded to the Commanding General, Third Army, for such action as he may deem appropriate.

Given Tagwyn's sig line, I have to wonder what the possible outcome of that might have been...

[Andreas]

Now, the 670,000 missing German soldiers.

Last returnees were in 1955/56, total of 22,000 to West and East Germany. So that leaves 650,000 missing.

Well, I guess since the paperwork for all those battles in the east is just impeccable, and we know exactly where every last Landser fell, is buried, and have a name for every body that was found, that only leaves the conclusion that they were all shot personally by Dwight, with the assistance of Leclerc, who handed him the ammunition.

Or maybe not. A quick look at the Volksbund website (www.volksbund.de - available only in German, further proof of the conspiracy to hide things), there are hundreds of thousands of German soldiers where there is little clarity what happened to them, today.

Moldavia - 200,000 to 400,000 German dead expected.

Ukraine - can trace 1.88 million to the territory, but could be as high as 2.2m.

Russia - not in the database yet.

Byelorussia - estimated losses 250,000.

Latvia - suspect 100,000.

Poland - estimated 400,000.

Of course, many of these are not missing, but would have been properly booked into the German loss system. But by no means all of them, and with the ranges seen here, 650,000 easily fit into the uncertainty range.

For the battle of Berlin no reliable German casualty estimate exists. At Halbe and Seelow they are still finding bodies today.

But hey, let's ignore this, and follow a fantasy trail pointing to Dwight's hate for the Germans, because we all know it just makes more sense to do so.

Regards

Andreas

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />32. In view of the transfer of the 42d and the 45th divisions, it is recommended that this report be forwarded to the Commanding General, Third Army, for such action as he may deem appropriate.

Given Tagwyn's sig line, I have to wonder what the possible outcome of that might have been... </font>

[Andreas]

Originally posted by painfbat:

I would like to ask Andreas to comment on 2 German writers:

On seems to even have worked for the Bundeswehr, but has his own "fansite" on VHO, so I quess what you'll think about him. It's Prof. Dr. Franz W. Seidler(Verbrechen an der Wehrmacht).

The other is Will Berthold(Parole Heimat-Deutsche Kriegsgefangene in Ost und West). I couldn't link him with VHO or something like that.

I was surching on Ebay for some Divisional books when I met there books. Maybe you could give a comment om both so I know what I can aspect.

====================================

BTW I'm looking for

DIE GESCHICHTE DER 22. INFANTERIE-DIVISION, 1939-1940.

Auteur; F.A. van Metzsch. 1952.

If anyone can help me out.....

=====================================

Cheers

Something on Seidler here Linky

Note the problems that exist with the list, i.e. lack of sources and context. If Seidler's work is a proper documentation of the work of the Wehrmacht War Crimes bureau (the unit investigating alleged war crimes committed against the Wehrmacht, as opposed to alleged war crimes committed by it), it maybe worth getting.

It is however likely that you have to engage your critical faculty very hard to ensure that you get the most of it:

Perlentaucher.de

Pressenotiz zu : Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20.07.2000

Eine kuriose Besprechung von Johannes Hürter! Er gesteht dem Autor den Titel "Militärhistoriker" zu, nennt seine Quellen - z.B. die Dokumente der "Wehrmacht-Untersuchungsstelle im Oberkommando der Wehrmacht" - "eine einseitige, jedoch ernst zu nehmende historische Quelle". Aber dann schlägt er auf den Autor und seine zweifelhafte Gesinnung ein: mit einer "tendenziösen Einleitung" hat er vor drei Jahren schon einmal Dokumente zu den "Verbrechen an der Wehrmacht" veröffentlicht, setzt auch diesmal wieder auf unkommentierte Veröffentlichung schockierender Fotos, gibt keinerlei Kontext zu Vorwürfen z.B. des Kannibalismus von Rotarmisten etc... Auch seine Sprache verrät ihn, schreibt Hürter, so sind sowjetischen Soldaten "die russische Soldateska" und "Gefahr aus dem Osten", während "die Tugenden des deutschen Mannes" mal wieder "Vaterlandsliebe, Ehre und Treue" sind. Erstaunlich ist, dass Hürter dies alles zwar keine "seriöse Wisenschaft" findet, das Anliegen des Autors jedoch, nämlich der Wehrmachtsausstellung des Hamburger Instituts für Sozialforschung etwas entgegenzusetzen, durchaus zu teilen scheint. So aber ist "den fragwürdigen Pauschalurteilen über die Wehrmacht" , schreibt der Rezensent bedauernd, "nicht zu begegnen".

Will Berthold is not a serious historian. He is one of the Vielschreiber. Not worth getting in my view, simply because of the author. I have read some of his other books, and they are a waste of perfectly good pulp.

All the best

Andreas

[John Kettler]

Andreas,

The external link I provided on Dachau has a stack of relevant reports, and based on the sum total of what I've seen, the one you give strikes me as being a classic Army example of construing things in the narrowest possible terms, rather like the Pentagon's current practice of counting as war dead only those who expire in country and before wheels up on the evac aircraft. Those who die while still over Iraq don't even count, never mind those who die of wounds en route to Landstuhl, at Landstuhl, etc.

Am rather more inclined to pay attention to what the primary eyewitnesses have to say, especially Buechner, who was self-evidently no friend of the Germans and, indeed, lauded the

"righteous retribution" he perceived to occur.

Evidently, the IG for HQ, 7th Army couldn't be bothered to even attempt to get an accurate count, handling it with a remarkable waffle instead.

I do take your point on the Totenkopfverbande to Waffen SS transfer matter, though, as was not aware of it.

Turning now to the missing German problem, in my earlier analysis I showed some of the defects inherent in the data and attempted to indicate that this could cause a large swing in the numbers. In the draft research paper I cited, additional evidence was given confirming my original broad hypothesis, and what you just now presented, for which I thank you, serves to further indicate large amounts of "slop" exist in such numbers as we do have. The link in the draft research paper, to the NEW YORK TIMES Review of Books for Bacque's "OTHER LOSSES," makes several excellent points: the difficulty for the typical reader in determining the truth or untruth of claims such as his (took a panel of specialists to

provide a credible response), the previously unknown to me severe food shortages in Europe, and the correctly noted by Bacque major policy change made by the Allies in reclassifying German POWs to less protected categories.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Andreas]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Where I come from, that's called lying with statistics, and I deem it most unfair of you to use such a tactic in order to attack my credibility and demean me personally.

Regards,

John Kettler

And this statement is somehow not 'lying with statistics'?

Originally posted by John Kettler:

The Operations Research findings on this matter are emphatic, as described by Prof. R.V. Jones in THE WIZARD WAR. Most of the British bombers weren't putting their ordnance within 5 miles of the desired aimpoint.

Pot, Kettle, Black.

Glasshouse, stones.

When the British bombers were putting their bombs 5 miles off target, the USAAF had not even started their campaign of daylight bombing.

Regards

Andreas

[Bigduke6]

John Kettler,

I read most of the site. It was a detailed case documenting an American atrocity, but at the same time leaving unsaid the most important fact of all: Dachau was a concentration camp. People held there were treated brutally, far beyond the pale of humanity.

I think it is telling that the site makes a big deal about the correspondents "getting wrong" the facts about the gas chamber, as Dachau was not a death camp like, for instance Buchenwald or Auschwitz.

However, the site however leaves practically unstated some of the things going at Dachau that continued effectively until the arrival of the Americans, for instance, lethal medical experiments on children. 28,000 people, more or less, died in Naxi detention at Dachau over the course of the war. The U.S. 45th Division soldiers were confronted with irrefutable evidence of that evil even before they broke into the camp.

I think I made my position clear. A concentration camp such as Dachau is not a normal wartime situation. There are some things that are beyong human imagination, and I suspect emotional impact of seeing a concentration camp is one of those htings. Death by starvation, disease, and neglect is not pretty. Death on a mass scale like Dachau - I'm talking inmates here - is so horrific, so repugnant to human society, so in violation of human norms, that I think it is impossible for every person confronted with that sight not to retaliate violently.

The S.S. ran the camp, the S.S. was responsible for the conditions in the camp, and once the inmates unaninimously identified the S.S. as the perpetrators of the mass murders. Again, I consider forced starvation and death by disease just as evil as gassing people to death or shooting them in the neck. Dead is dead, and the more people you kill, the worse a crime it is.

I am not surprised the Americans executed some S.S. soldiers. If anything, I am surprised they did not execute more - and I suspect that had war correspondents not been on the scene, that might well have been the case.

If there is one thing that Dachau proves, it is that human life is not sacrosanct to all humans. There are crimes that go beyond the ability of a court of law to deal with. A concentration camp is one of them. If some of the U.S. soldiers got mad enough to take the law into their own hands, then I don't call that a war crime. I call it a rough form of justice.

[John Kettler]

Andreas,

The statement is correct as given at the time, and it was precisely because of this embarrassing discovery that the RAF changed its entire operational concept in acknowledging an acute delivery accuracy problem. In subsequent posts, I did take note of a series of improvements in accuracy via Oboe, Gee, H2S, H2X, pathfinders, etc., thus fail to see how you can take me to task over those. Even so, the RAF was NOT precision bombing single factories and marshalling yards at night, but was engaged, even late in the war, in a deliberate policy of city busting. Rather the antithesis of precision bombing, wouldn't you say?

Note, too, that I'm NOT addressing any RAF daylight raids.

And remember, my comment was about aggregate wartime delivery accuracy in the bombing campaign against Germany by the respective forces, with the U.S. bombing by day and the British by night.

If we take CEP as the measure of effectiveness and track it for the two forces involved for their respective periods of combat, there is absolutely NO WAY the averaged RAF CEP can even come close to that of the U.S.A.A.F., if nothing else because of all those early years of the RAF campaign before the electronic aids were available would make it impossible to catch up. Kind of like having a 4.0

average, then getting a "D." In this case, though, with early war RAF CEPs measured in miles, it's more like trying to get an "A" average by starting out with a long string of "F"s.

If Force A comes right out of the starting gate with, say, 1000 ft. CEPs and continues to improve from there, how is Force B which starts at, say, 5 miles and gradually reduces it from there supposed to compete, even if it gets great navaids late in the game? The answer is intuitively obvious--it can't. This is not to disparage the brave RAF bomber crewmen who died in their thousands, but rather simply reflects the limits of navigation at the time and the relative ease of navigating and bombing in broad daylight as compared to doing it under a bomber's moon.

While my family does have a connection with pots,

in the form of dye kettles, as evidenced in several heraldic crests, this is NOT a case of the pot's calling the kettle black.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Andreas]

Your comment was a deliberate distortion of the truth, and all your backpeddling now is not going to change it. You did not specify a time, just said UK OR showed 5 mile hit area. No qualification in your post. You did not mention any future improvements to UK technique in your post either. What you do in posts following that one has no bearing on the content of the first post, and I can very easily take you to task for it and do so.

Especially since you only correct yourself once challenged by Trap One. Until then, you are happy to let deliberate distortion of the historical record stand despite your knowledge that things were not as bad as you paint them. That's called distorting and furious backpeddling where I am from.

BTW have you 'gone back' and checked on whether area bombing was a violation of the laws of war? Enlighten us with your findings.

Regards

Andreas