friedrich braun
09-14-2004, 08:31 PM
13 September 2004
[Originally published in Common Sense, 1 January 1961]
(A word about the Author; The author of the following article, an American soldier, went to Europe believing all the conventional hate propaganda against Germany that had been disseminated in America by a controlled and kept press, radio, movies and other sources of information. But being possessed of a keen, intelligent and inquiring mind, he investigated in a fair way. After carrying on his research, he came back home from Europe disillusioned with his former feelings of animosity against Germany.)
WHAT I SAW.
Back in June, 1945, I was stationed at the former German concentration camp at Dachau, Bavaria.
The Jewish refugees were still there in great numbers, the war having ended for Dachau only two months earlier. The other refugees, had long since gone home and to work. The Jew refugees remained and were pilfering the camp of everything they could easily carry away. The warehouses and storerooms of the camp had been emptied of all kinds of goods and material at the end of the war.
The first time I noticed this jew thievery was when a jew commandeered an army truck going into Munich. He had large cloth bags with him. They were full of leather. But he was just an ordinary thief. Another time a jew tried to steal five hundred pounds of brass out of a utility shop and got caught within my presence.
One Rumanian jew stole enough goods out of the camp and got enough free labor from the prisoners of war that he started a factory of his own and shared its ownership with the Jewish-American sub-commander of the camp maintenance system. His name was. Major Greene. The reason I know is that I often took gangs of prisoners of war over to the factory near the village of Dachau and guarded them while they toiled.
The jews stole cars and trucks from the camp and maintained them right in the camp at the expense of the American army. I've seen them bribe G I's to steal- gasoline for the trucks and cars.
German engineers and auto experts were employed to keep the stolen vehicles in good condition when the German prisoners were supposed by army authorities to be working on American army trucks.
An enduring mental picture I have of the Automotive Repair shop is the cars of the various jews jacked up for repairs and occupying all the space in the garage.
The jews also used material and labor from the camp in order to keep up and repair their homes and homes of their girl friends outside the camp, sometimes as far away as Munich. I used to take work details over to Munich to work on these private houses.
The jews occupied nearly all the decent housing on the premises of the camp while many American soldiers had to live three to a room. The house of the former commandant of the camp in German days was occupied by. a jew named Miklos and his White servants. He wore black leather boots and riding pants and drove around the camp in a German limousine. He used to throw parties for some of the American officers. Then the house would be lit up all night and the sound of the band could be heard all over the camp, which covered about a square mile.
I sometimes would mention to other G I's stationed at Dachau what I saw the jews doing. "That's nothing. Yesterday they ..." was an answer I often got back. The same thing was happening all over the camp from what I heard. I was told specifically that the jews stole glass wool, army gasoline, radio parts by the truckful, and a whole warehouse full of skis. Within a few months after the war, the cupboard was bare of materials and goods in so far as wartime Dachau was concerned. But many a jew fortune was made.
How did the jews get away with it? One way was thru the propaganda about their persecution at the hands of the Germans during the war. This propaganda caused the Americans to be indifferent towards the Jewish plundering of property belonging to others.
Some people seemed to think that jews were above the law and beyond criticism. Once a jew went up to a G I, a youngster in years, and army experience, and pointed out the window to a detail of Hungarian prisoners of war. "See that Hungarian out there with the stripes on his arm? He was a member of the Hungarian secret police during the war. He tortured a lot of jews." The American soldier went out and forced the Hungarian to clean snow off the tops of a row of army trailers. He made him do it with bare hands.
Another thing was the organization of Jewry itself. The jews were for all practical purposes in charge of Dachau. Most important jobs and positions seemed to be in their hands. The section of the camp where I was employed was overseen by an American Jewish officer. The American army sergeant of the prison compound where I worked was still another American jew.
His name was Givertz. The foreman of all the prisoners of war sent out from the compound was a jew refugee. And the compound office swarmed with droves of other jews.
When Givertz came to the office in July, he was a "T" corporal and was outranked by a gentile buck sergeant. The buck sergeant was transferred to another job in another part of the camp early in August. Later on he took a civilian job at the camp at $5,500 a year. Givertz was promoted first to buck sergeant, then to staff sergeant, and the last I heard he was a master sergeant, by the first of 1946.
In January of 1946 the American army forcibly deported Ukrainian freedom fighters to Communist Russia. When the war had started in 1941 between Russia and Germany, the Ukrainians had risen up against the Red dictatorship at Moscow and fought alongside the Germans. They did so in order to free their country from Russian occupation.
The Russians permanently reoccupied Ukrainia at the close of WW II and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians had fled to the West for sanctuary, where they were jailed by the American army and kept in camps like Dachau. The Red government at Moscow said the Ukrainians were Nazis and demanded their return.
One day at noon I heard a terrible cry and sounds of commotion at the Ukrainian compound; Upon arriving; there, I saw that the Ukrainians were being forced by a contingent of the artillery soldiers to board railroad boxcars The train was parked on a siding just outside the Ukrainian compound:
The effort to force the Ukrainians had not succeeded as yet. First the American officers had asked the Ukrainians to get on the train. Then they sent American soldiers into the barracks to force them out. Then the Americans had tossed tear gas bombs had not come out. Instead the Ukrainians crowded to the windows for fresh air and pleaded with the American soldiers for mercy.
Near the gate to the prison enclosure stood the American officers and the Red officers who were to accompany the Ukrainians to Russia. Swarming around the boxcars of the train and spilling over into the compound were hundreds of spectators. The compound was filled with a battallion of American soldiers milling around trying to escape the fumes from the bombs that had been tossed into the barracks. They were unable to approach them because of the gas clinging to the building and all in it.
After a conference between the American and Communist officers, gas masks had been summoned from an infantry regiment headquarters. Shortly the American soldiers donned the masks and divided into teams.
American soldiers went into the barracks with clubs. They beat down resistance and dragged the Ukrainians out of the barracks one by one. They handed them to the main body of American soldiers who remained outside the barracks. Two soldiers would then get on either arm of a Ukrainian and another American soldier would follow along behind with a club. If the unfortunate twisted or resisted the soldier behind would strike him on the back of the head. And they did not spare the rod.
The doors of the railroad boxcars were thrown wide open. The Ukrainians, like cattle, were packed tightly in both ends of the boxcars. Both ends were boarded up and nailed fast, leaving the middle of the car empty where the doors opened. A soldier rode in the middle of the car as guard.
As a last measure of resistance, the sweaty, tear-stained Ukrainians locked their arms together in sheer desperation and came outside the barracks; The ragged lines swayed as they sang national anthems of their country; The soldiers charged the lines and beat them down with clubs.
Still another team of American soldiers cleared out from the barracks whoever tried to remain inside. One youth was dragged by the feet out from one of the barracks. He had wedged himself under a bed and breathed deeply of the gas fumes.
When they dragged him out he was suffocated by the tear gas. The color of his face was deep purple. His long, lank body and close-cropped blond hair reminded me of some American high school athlete of pre-war days in America. But the youth was not the only dead Ukrainian. The area was littered with the bodies of victims of tear gas and physical assault. One of them had regained an upright position. He was praying, and for some reason I fancied he was saying "Forgive them, Oh Lord, for they know not what they do."
I knew that history was in the making. I therefore had the urge to participate. So I joined the ranks of one group of American soldiers as they left the railroad cars after having delivered their charges to them.
I got in line and grabbed the left arm of a Ukrainian and began escorting him to the train. The smell of tear gas was strong and I could feel the sweat under his aim thru his torn shirt. He sagged a little arid bent his head as he went along. Half way to the gate I leaned towards his ear arid said in a low voice, "Fini, eh?" He answered in the affirmative.
For a long time I fancied I could smell the sweat from his arm on my fingers. I could not help but contrast the oriental features and squat build of the communist officers with the light complexioned and-straight-featured countenance of the Ukrainian patriot.
Days later there were stories around the carnp that the Ukrainians had been shot as soon as-the train crossed into the Soviet zone of Germany.
I hate to admit it but not one American soldier I talked to about it displayed the slightest amount of sympathy for the Ukrainians. ''They were traitors," were the inevitable answers. Once I replied to a buddy of mine, "Then the Italians were traitors for turning on Germany. The Ukrainians are no more Russians than the Italians are Germans." My friend could not understand.
What I Learned Thru Personal Investigation in My Capacity as a Guard at the Camp.
...
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/2004b/WhitneyHateGermanyagitprop.htm
[Originally published in Common Sense, 1 January 1961]
(A word about the Author; The author of the following article, an American soldier, went to Europe believing all the conventional hate propaganda against Germany that had been disseminated in America by a controlled and kept press, radio, movies and other sources of information. But being possessed of a keen, intelligent and inquiring mind, he investigated in a fair way. After carrying on his research, he came back home from Europe disillusioned with his former feelings of animosity against Germany.)
WHAT I SAW.
Back in June, 1945, I was stationed at the former German concentration camp at Dachau, Bavaria.
The Jewish refugees were still there in great numbers, the war having ended for Dachau only two months earlier. The other refugees, had long since gone home and to work. The Jew refugees remained and were pilfering the camp of everything they could easily carry away. The warehouses and storerooms of the camp had been emptied of all kinds of goods and material at the end of the war.
The first time I noticed this jew thievery was when a jew commandeered an army truck going into Munich. He had large cloth bags with him. They were full of leather. But he was just an ordinary thief. Another time a jew tried to steal five hundred pounds of brass out of a utility shop and got caught within my presence.
One Rumanian jew stole enough goods out of the camp and got enough free labor from the prisoners of war that he started a factory of his own and shared its ownership with the Jewish-American sub-commander of the camp maintenance system. His name was. Major Greene. The reason I know is that I often took gangs of prisoners of war over to the factory near the village of Dachau and guarded them while they toiled.
The jews stole cars and trucks from the camp and maintained them right in the camp at the expense of the American army. I've seen them bribe G I's to steal- gasoline for the trucks and cars.
German engineers and auto experts were employed to keep the stolen vehicles in good condition when the German prisoners were supposed by army authorities to be working on American army trucks.
An enduring mental picture I have of the Automotive Repair shop is the cars of the various jews jacked up for repairs and occupying all the space in the garage.
The jews also used material and labor from the camp in order to keep up and repair their homes and homes of their girl friends outside the camp, sometimes as far away as Munich. I used to take work details over to Munich to work on these private houses.
The jews occupied nearly all the decent housing on the premises of the camp while many American soldiers had to live three to a room. The house of the former commandant of the camp in German days was occupied by. a jew named Miklos and his White servants. He wore black leather boots and riding pants and drove around the camp in a German limousine. He used to throw parties for some of the American officers. Then the house would be lit up all night and the sound of the band could be heard all over the camp, which covered about a square mile.
I sometimes would mention to other G I's stationed at Dachau what I saw the jews doing. "That's nothing. Yesterday they ..." was an answer I often got back. The same thing was happening all over the camp from what I heard. I was told specifically that the jews stole glass wool, army gasoline, radio parts by the truckful, and a whole warehouse full of skis. Within a few months after the war, the cupboard was bare of materials and goods in so far as wartime Dachau was concerned. But many a jew fortune was made.
How did the jews get away with it? One way was thru the propaganda about their persecution at the hands of the Germans during the war. This propaganda caused the Americans to be indifferent towards the Jewish plundering of property belonging to others.
Some people seemed to think that jews were above the law and beyond criticism. Once a jew went up to a G I, a youngster in years, and army experience, and pointed out the window to a detail of Hungarian prisoners of war. "See that Hungarian out there with the stripes on his arm? He was a member of the Hungarian secret police during the war. He tortured a lot of jews." The American soldier went out and forced the Hungarian to clean snow off the tops of a row of army trailers. He made him do it with bare hands.
Another thing was the organization of Jewry itself. The jews were for all practical purposes in charge of Dachau. Most important jobs and positions seemed to be in their hands. The section of the camp where I was employed was overseen by an American Jewish officer. The American army sergeant of the prison compound where I worked was still another American jew.
His name was Givertz. The foreman of all the prisoners of war sent out from the compound was a jew refugee. And the compound office swarmed with droves of other jews.
When Givertz came to the office in July, he was a "T" corporal and was outranked by a gentile buck sergeant. The buck sergeant was transferred to another job in another part of the camp early in August. Later on he took a civilian job at the camp at $5,500 a year. Givertz was promoted first to buck sergeant, then to staff sergeant, and the last I heard he was a master sergeant, by the first of 1946.
In January of 1946 the American army forcibly deported Ukrainian freedom fighters to Communist Russia. When the war had started in 1941 between Russia and Germany, the Ukrainians had risen up against the Red dictatorship at Moscow and fought alongside the Germans. They did so in order to free their country from Russian occupation.
The Russians permanently reoccupied Ukrainia at the close of WW II and hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians had fled to the West for sanctuary, where they were jailed by the American army and kept in camps like Dachau. The Red government at Moscow said the Ukrainians were Nazis and demanded their return.
One day at noon I heard a terrible cry and sounds of commotion at the Ukrainian compound; Upon arriving; there, I saw that the Ukrainians were being forced by a contingent of the artillery soldiers to board railroad boxcars The train was parked on a siding just outside the Ukrainian compound:
The effort to force the Ukrainians had not succeeded as yet. First the American officers had asked the Ukrainians to get on the train. Then they sent American soldiers into the barracks to force them out. Then the Americans had tossed tear gas bombs had not come out. Instead the Ukrainians crowded to the windows for fresh air and pleaded with the American soldiers for mercy.
Near the gate to the prison enclosure stood the American officers and the Red officers who were to accompany the Ukrainians to Russia. Swarming around the boxcars of the train and spilling over into the compound were hundreds of spectators. The compound was filled with a battallion of American soldiers milling around trying to escape the fumes from the bombs that had been tossed into the barracks. They were unable to approach them because of the gas clinging to the building and all in it.
After a conference between the American and Communist officers, gas masks had been summoned from an infantry regiment headquarters. Shortly the American soldiers donned the masks and divided into teams.
American soldiers went into the barracks with clubs. They beat down resistance and dragged the Ukrainians out of the barracks one by one. They handed them to the main body of American soldiers who remained outside the barracks. Two soldiers would then get on either arm of a Ukrainian and another American soldier would follow along behind with a club. If the unfortunate twisted or resisted the soldier behind would strike him on the back of the head. And they did not spare the rod.
The doors of the railroad boxcars were thrown wide open. The Ukrainians, like cattle, were packed tightly in both ends of the boxcars. Both ends were boarded up and nailed fast, leaving the middle of the car empty where the doors opened. A soldier rode in the middle of the car as guard.
As a last measure of resistance, the sweaty, tear-stained Ukrainians locked their arms together in sheer desperation and came outside the barracks; The ragged lines swayed as they sang national anthems of their country; The soldiers charged the lines and beat them down with clubs.
Still another team of American soldiers cleared out from the barracks whoever tried to remain inside. One youth was dragged by the feet out from one of the barracks. He had wedged himself under a bed and breathed deeply of the gas fumes.
When they dragged him out he was suffocated by the tear gas. The color of his face was deep purple. His long, lank body and close-cropped blond hair reminded me of some American high school athlete of pre-war days in America. But the youth was not the only dead Ukrainian. The area was littered with the bodies of victims of tear gas and physical assault. One of them had regained an upright position. He was praying, and for some reason I fancied he was saying "Forgive them, Oh Lord, for they know not what they do."
I knew that history was in the making. I therefore had the urge to participate. So I joined the ranks of one group of American soldiers as they left the railroad cars after having delivered their charges to them.
I got in line and grabbed the left arm of a Ukrainian and began escorting him to the train. The smell of tear gas was strong and I could feel the sweat under his aim thru his torn shirt. He sagged a little arid bent his head as he went along. Half way to the gate I leaned towards his ear arid said in a low voice, "Fini, eh?" He answered in the affirmative.
For a long time I fancied I could smell the sweat from his arm on my fingers. I could not help but contrast the oriental features and squat build of the communist officers with the light complexioned and-straight-featured countenance of the Ukrainian patriot.
Days later there were stories around the carnp that the Ukrainians had been shot as soon as-the train crossed into the Soviet zone of Germany.
I hate to admit it but not one American soldier I talked to about it displayed the slightest amount of sympathy for the Ukrainians. ''They were traitors," were the inevitable answers. Once I replied to a buddy of mine, "Then the Italians were traitors for turning on Germany. The Ukrainians are no more Russians than the Italians are Germans." My friend could not understand.
What I Learned Thru Personal Investigation in My Capacity as a Guard at the Camp.
...
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/2004b/WhitneyHateGermanyagitprop.htm