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Crimes Against Humanity
The Unfolding HORROR-CAUST by Michael Walsh
THE ALLIES BLOODLUST
'Enjoy the war - the peace is going to be terrible.' Graffiti on a Berlin wall.
March 1945
The most pressing priority for the victorious allies as the Second World War drew to a close was to ensure that Germany would never again dominate Europe and pose a threat as a trade competitor. Central to this policy was the need to drastically reduce the German population.
By 1950, less than five years after the German defeat, an estimated 11,000,000 Germans had either been liquidated or enslaved by the allies. This fell far short of the demands for total liquidation as demanded by the Roosevelt administration's Secretary to the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau. However in eastern Germany, the Soviet government dominated by whom Winston Churchill described as, ". . . this same astounding (Jewish) race . . . "(Illustrated Sunday Herald. Feb. 8th, 1920) were bent on the complete liquidation of those millions of Germans whose territory they had overrun, proceeded with their policy of genocide. They did so with the unequivocal material and political support of Winston Churchill.
Astoundingly, even British troops (prisoners of war) caught up in the German retreat were similarly slaughtered by the Red Army who neither knew nor cared of the differences between their allies and enemies. Here are eyewitness reports providing snapshot exposures of the Soviets terrible anti-Christian crusade in eastern Germany during the Winter of 1944/1945 as: "The Russians. . . swept the native population clean in a manner that has no parallel since the days of the Asiatic hordes." George F. Kennan in his Memoirs, 1967, Vol.1, p265.
THE BACKGROUND TO THESE TERRIBLE DEEDS
In the final two years of the Second World War, Communist Russia, the United
States and Britain were drawing up plans for the dismemberment of Europe, the
amputation of 25% of German territory, and the handing over of half of Europe to
the Soviet Union. This policy would mean the forced expulsion of 15,000,000
Germans from their traditional homelands in East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia,
Eastern Brandenburg, the Sudetenland, pre-war Poland, Hungary, Rumania and
Yugoslavia.
Its purpose was to remove the 'problem of German minorities', the desire to reward the USSR with territory, the destruction of Germany as a major European commercial rival to Britain and France, compensation for Poland, and the desire to punish the conquered Germans. These expulsions continued until 1949 -- four years after the war formally ending.
BRITISH COMPLICITY "Since the end of the war about 3,000,000 people, mostly women and children and over-aged men, have been killed in Eastern Germany and south-eastern Europe; about 15,000,000 people have been deported or had to flee their homesteads and are on the road. About 25% of these people, over 3,000,000 have perished. About 4,000,000 men and women have been deported to Eastern Europe as slaves. It seems that the elimination of the German population of Eastern Europe -- at least 15,000,000 people -- was planned in accordance with decisions made at Yalta. Churchill had said to Mikolakczyk when the latter protested during the negotiations to Moscow against forcing Poland to incorporate eastern Germany; 'Don't mind the five or more million Germans. Stalin will see to them. You will have no trouble with them; they will cease to exist.'" Senator Homer Capehart; U.S Senate, February 5th 1946
THE SOVIETS "The Germans are not human beings. From now on the word German means to us the most terrible oath. . . . We shall kill. If you have not killed at least one German a day, you have wasted that day. If you cannot kill your German with a bullet, kill him with a bayonet. If there is calm on your part of the front, or if you are waiting for the fighting, kill a German in the meantime. If you kill one German, kill another. There is nothing more amusing than a heap of German corpses." Ilya Ehrenburg, The Soviet Minister of Propaganda.
THE RABBI "In war. . . it is a mitzvah (good deed) to kill every gentile from the nation that is fighting the Jew, even women and children." Rabbi Ido Elba. Baruch, The Man. The Times, 16th March 1995
INVASION FROM THE EAST
In October, 1944, the Red Army first entered German territory -- the village of
Nemmersdorf in East Prussia. What was to happen there was to be repeated
in thousands of villages, towns and communities throughout eastern
Germany. This 'ethnic cleansing' policy carried out by
Stalin with the full approval of both Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt,
would result in the murder of an estimated 3,000,000 German civilians.
"When in October, 1944, Russian units... broke through German defenses and
advanced as far as Nemmersdorf, they tortured civilians in many villages south
of Gumbinnen, nailed some on barn doors and shot many others. A large
number of women were raped. The Russian soldiers also shot some fifty
French prisoners-of-war. The effected villages were reoccupied by German
forces within forty-eight hours." Major-General Erich Dethleffsen, Chief of
Staff, German Fourth Army testimony to American Tribunal.
"On the road through Nemmersdorf, I saw a whole trek of refugees had been rolled over by Russian tanks; not only the wagons and teams, but also a goodly number of civilians, mostly women and children, had been squashed flat by the tanks. At the edge of the road and in the farm yards lay quantities of corpses of civilians who evidently had not all been killed in the course of military operations but rather had been murdered systematically.
On the edge of the street an old woman sat hunched up, killed by a bullet in the back of the neck. Not far away lay a baby of only four months, killed by a shot at close range through the forehead.... a number of men, with no other marks of fatal wounds, had been killed by blows with shovels or gun butts; their faces were completely smashed. At least one man was nailed to a barn door. Yet, not only in Nemmersdorf itself, but also in the nearby villages between Angerapp and Rominten similar cases were noted after these villages were cleared of Russian troops. Neither in Nemmersdorf nor in the other places did I find a single living German civilian despite the fact that the Russian invasion had come as such a surprise that no appreciable number of civilians could have fled. . . . " Dr. Heinrich Amberger
"At the edge of town, on the left side of the road, stand the large inn, Weisser Krug.... in the farmyard further down the road stood a cart, to which four naked women were nailed through their hands in a cruciform position. Behind the Weisser Krug towards Gumbinnen is a square with a monument to the Unknown Soldier. Beyond it is another large inn, Roter Krug. Near it, parallel to the road, stood a barn and to each of its doors a naked woman was nailed through the hands, in a crucified posture. In the dwellings we found a total of seventy-two women, including children and one old man, 74, all dead... all murdered in a bestial manner, except only for a few who had bullet holes in their necks. Some babies had their heads bashed in. In one room we found a woman, 84 years old, sitting on a sofa... half of whose head had been sheared off with an axe or a spade. We carried the corpses to the village cemetery where they lay to await a foreign medical commission. In the meantime, a nurse from Insterburg came, a native of Nemmersdorf, who looked for her parents. Among the corpses were her mother, 72, and her father, 74, the only man among the dead. She also established that all the dead were Nemmersdorfers. On the fourth day the bodies were buries in two graves. Only the following day did the medical commission arrive, and the tombs had to be reopened. This foreign commission unanimously established that all of the women, even the woman of 84 years had been raped." Karl Potrek
"The women who had been surprised in the village, including several nuns, had been herded together by the Russians, raped and gravely abused. The women had been bestially stabbed or shot. The Army (Wehrmacht) immediately invited the neutral Press. Reporters from Switzerland and Sweden as well as some Spaniards and Frenchmen from the occupied parts of France came to witness the frightful scene." Captain Emil Herminghaus
"The Russians... swept the native population clean in a manner that has no parallel since the days of the Asiatic hordes." George F. Kennan
"Expulsion is the method which, so far as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting." Winston Churchill, December 15th 1944 House of Commons
"The transference of several millions of people would have to be effected from the East to the West or the North, as well as the expulsion of Germans -- because of what is proposed; the total expulsion of the Germans -- from the area to be acquired by Poland in the West and the North." Winston Churchill, House of Commons, December,15th 1944
AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
The following is an excerpt from an eyewitness's account given by Leonora Geier
(born, October 22nd 1925, Sao Paulo, Brazil) to Dr. Trutz Foelsche, Ph.D, the
original account of which appeared in Deutsche Nationalzeitung, No.17-65, p.7.
"On the morning of February, 16th, (1945) a Russian detachment occupied the RAD (Reichsarbeitsdienst)camp Vilmsee near Neustettin. The Commissar told me in good German language that the camp was dissolved and that we, as a unit with uniforms (RAD - German Labour Service, not military uniforms), would be transported to a collection camp. Since I, as a Brazilian citizen, belong to an allied nation, he asked me to take over as a leader of the transport that went to Neustettin, into the yard of a former iron foundry. We were about 500 girls (Maidens of the Reichsarbeitsdienst -- German Labor Service).
He said I could come into the orderly room, which I accepted. Immediately he directed me to make no further contact with the other women, because they were members of an illegal army. On my response that this was not true, he cut me off with the remark that I would be shot immediately, if I would repeat in any form a similar statement.
"Suddenly I heard loud screams, and promptly, five girls were brought in by two Red Armists. The Commissar ordered them to undress. When they, in a sense of shame, refused to d so, he ordered me to undress them and to follow him with the girls. We walked through the yard to the former factory kitchen, which was completely cleared out except for some tables along the window wall. It was dreadfully cold and the unfortunate girls trembled. In the huge tiled room several Russians waited for us who were obviously making obscene remarks, because every word was followed by loud laughter. The Commissar then directed me to watch how one makes sissies out of 'The Master Race'.
Now two Poles, clad in trousers only, entered the room. At their sight the girls cried out. Briskly, they seized the first of the two girls and bent her over with her back over the edge of the table until her joints cracked. I almost fainted when one of the men pulled his knife and cut off her right breast in the presence of the other girls. I have never heard a human being scream as desperately as this young woman. After this 'operation' both men stabbed her several times in the abdomen, accompanied again by the howling of the Russians.
The next girl cried for mercy, in vain; since she was exceptionally pretty. I had the impression that the 'work' was carried out very slowly. The other three girls were completely broken down, cried for their mothers and begged for a speedy death, but also fate them overtook. The last of the girls was still half a child, with barely developed breasts; one tore the flesh literally from her ribs until the white bone appeared. Again, five girls were brought in. This time, they had selected carefully.
All were developed and pretty. When they saw the bodies of their predecessors, they began to cry and scream. Weak as they were, they tried to defend themselves but to no avail; the Poles became more cruel every time. One of the girls, they cut open her womb and trunk over the full length; poured a can of machine oil into the mutilated body and tried to set fire to it. Another was shot in the genitals by a Russian, before they cut off her breasts.
A great howling began when someone brought a saw from a tool box. Now, using the saw, they set to work to tear the breasts of the girls to pieces, which in a short period of time led to the floor being flooded with blood. A blood rage seized the Russians.
Continuously one of them brought more and more girls. Like in a red fog, I saw the gruesome happenings again and again and I perceived the inhuman screaming at the torture of their breasts and the loud groaning at the mutilation of their private parts. When my legs failed me, I was forced into a chair. The Commissar persistently watched me to make sure I was looking toward the torture scenes. In fact, when I had to vomit, they even paused with their tortures. One girl had not undressed completely, she may have been somewhat older than the rest of the girls who were about 17-years old. One of the torturers soaked her bra with oil and ignited it and, while she cried out, another drove a thin iron rod into her vagina until it emerged at her navel In the yard they liquidated entire groups of girls, after they had selected the prettiest ones for the torture room. The air was filled with the death cries of many hundreds of girls. But in view of what happened here, the slaughter outside could be considered more humane. It was a dreadful fact that not one of the girls brought into the torture room lost her consciousness.
In their horror all were equal in their expressions. It was always the same; the begging for mercy, the high-pitched scream when their breasts were cut and their genitals mutilated. Several times the slaughter was interrupted to sweep out the blood and to clear away the corpses.
That evening I sank into a severe nerve fever. From then on I lack any recollection until the moment I awoke in a military hospital. German troops had recaptured Neustettin temporarily, and had thus liberated us. As I learned later, approximately 2,000 girls were murdered during the first three days of the first round of Russian occupation." Mrs. Leonora Geier, nee Cavoa
This documented and authoritative account was not an isolated act of barbarism carried out by Russians and Poles. It was one small incident of many thousands recorded, being part of a predetermined allied policy that had as its aim the destruction of Germany as a competitive nation; territorial dismemberment, deportation and genocide to reduce its population.
THE AMERICANS "When I said that in the end Germany would be driven into the arms of Soviet Russia and Bolshevism, the Ambassador replied: 'What of it? There will not be enough Germans left when the war is over to be worth bolshevising.'" Karl von Wiegand, April 23rd 1944, Chicago Herald American, November 12th, p.18
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN "For three weeks the war had been going on inside Germany, and all of us knew very well that if the girls were German they could be raped and then shot. This was almost a combat distinction."
THE GRUESOME CONSEQUENCES OF ALLIED BARBARITY
POPE X11 "....the plight of millions who must answer to the hideous appellation of 'expellees'" Pope Pius X11, October,3rd, 1949 to American Congressional Committee
"The Potsdam Conference sanctions the principle of transferment. That is, the elimination of minorities. It is contrary to the law of nature to remove millions and millions of people from their homes," Pope X11. Observatore Romano, August, 1945
ADMIRAL DANIEL LEAHY, AMBASSADOR TO THE VICHY GOVERNMENT "I felt sorry for the German people. We were planning -- and we had the force to carry out our plans -- to obliterate a once mighty nation. I had an uneasy feeling that those eighty million Germans some how or other would live to fight again."
GENERAL DWIGHT (IKE) EISENHOWER "Our primary purpose is destruction of as many Germans as possible. I expect to destroy every German west of the Rhine and within that area in which we are attacking." General Eisenhower. J. Kingsley Smith (INS) Paris. February 24th 1945
INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN ECONOMICS "The sacking of Germany after her unconditional surrender will go down in history as one of the most monstrous acts of modern times. Its excess beggars description and its magnitude defies condemnation." Ralph F. Keeling, Gruesome Harvest, 1947. Institute of American Economics
CHURCHILL BELATEDLY ADMITS A BLUNDER WITHOUT EQUAL Posterity will probably regard the Second World War as a blunder without equal resulting in a tragedy that defies parallel, the results of which will scar the face of humanity for all time. On the face of it, war had been declared for the purpose of defending, what many agreed at the time was indefensible; Poland's continued acquisition of territorial booty; "... that very Poland which with hyena appetite only six months before, joined in the pillage and destruction of the Czechoslovak state." Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol.1, pp 311/312
ALFRED DeZAYAS "It is in a sense astonishing that 34 years after the war so little is known outside Germany about this unhappy sequel. Even less has been discussed about the role that the United States and Great Britain played in authorizing the expulsions."
Alfred M. DeZayas, Nemesis at Potsdam "The disaster that befell this area (eastern Germany) with the entry of the Soviet forces has no parallel in modern European experience. There were considerable sections of it where, to judge by all existing evidence, scarcely a man, woman or child of the indigenous population was left alive after the initial passage of the Soviet forces." George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 1967, Vol.1, p265
WORKING TOGETHER IN GENOCIDE; STALIN AND CHURCHILL "We were unable to go into eastern Germany because of the policies of the Russian Government, but from authentic reports received, both in person and through the Press, conditions there, due to the policies of the Soviet Government and the conduct of the Soviet armies, are horrible beyond human comprehension. In fact, by eyewitness accounts, loot, pillage, pestilence and rape, wholesale murder and human suffering form one of the most terrible chapters in human history. Words are incapable of adequately picturing conditions there. The virtue of womanhood and the value of human life are civilized man's most sacred possessions, yet they are the very cheapest thing in Russian-occupied Germany today.... Thousands of people have been murdered, thousands of women violated, and conditions horrible, beyond civilized human comprehension prevail." Senator Eastland, December, 4th, Congressional Record
FIELD MARSHALL MONTGOMERY "From their behavior it soon became clear that the Russians, though a fine fighting race, were in fact barbarous Asiatics who had never enjoyed a civilization comparable to that of the rest of Europe. Their approach to every problem was utterly different from ours and their behavior, especially in their treatment of women, was abhorrent to us. In certain sectors of the Russian zone there were practically no Germans left...."
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN "In Allenstein, which had been taken almost without a fight, the sacking and raping lasted for weeks."
Dr. ALBERT SCHWEITZER "The most grievous violation of the right based on historical evolution and of any human right in general is to deprive populations of the right to occupy they country where they live by compelling them to settle elsewhere. The fact that the victorious powers decided at the end of the Second World War to impose this fate on hundreds of thousands of human beings, and what is more, in a most cruel manner, shows how little they were aware of the challenge facing them, to re-establish prosperity and, as far as possible, the rule of law." Dr. Albert Schweitzer on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Oslo, November, 4th, 1954
REAR ADMIRAL HENRY C. FLANAGAN, U.S.N Commander "Had the originators of the War Crimes Trials doctrine been in any degree motivated by justice and the desire to punish the perpetrators of extreme atrocities in time of war they would have at least made some attempt to bring to trial the hundreds of Russian officials for perpetrating the most heinous atrocities ever afflicted upon civilized peoples, against the Poles and Germans and no doubt against all other people who have at any time been under Russian control."
LORD CURZON "A thoroughly bad and vicious solution, for which the world will pay a heavy penalty for a hundred years to come." Lord Curzon, British Foreign Minister, 1919 - 1924
VICTOR GOLLANCZ "If the conscience of men ever again becomes sensitive, these expulsions will be remembered to the undying shame of all who committed or connived at them... the Germans were expelled, not just with an absence of over-nice consideration but with the very maximum of brutality." Our Threatened Values, 1946, p.96
ROBERT MURPHY "Knowledge that they are the victim of a harsh political decision carried out with the utmost ruthlessness and disregard for the humanities does not cushion the effect.... it would be most unfortunate were the record to indicate that we are the particeps to methods we have often condemned in other instances." Robert Murphy, U.S Political Adviser to Germany
BERTRAND RUSSELL "In Eastern Europe now mass deportations are being carried out by our allies of an unprecedented scale, and an apparently deliberate attempt is being made to exterminate many millions of Germans, not by gas, but by depriving them of their homes and of food, leaving them to die by slow and agonizing starvation. This is not an act of war, but as part of a deliberate policy of 'peace'...." Bertrand Russell, The Times, October, 19th, 1945
FLEEING THE RED ARMY "Sometimes six or eight hours were necessary to cross the ice, sometimes even longer. Exhaustion and exposure took its toll of lives, especially among the very young and the very old. Babies froze and were left by their mothers on the ice, old women fell from their wagons -- dead. But a touch of the macabre would still be added by low-flying Russian planes, which mercilessly machine-gunned the refugees and bombed the ice so many a wagon train sank through the broken ice and disappeared in the waters of the Haff. Horses drowned, people drowned. It was an unimaginable trial against despair." Alfred deZayas, Nemesis at Potsdam
Note: The Federal Ministry for Expellees, Refugees and War Victims of the German Government holds eight volumes of 600-1,000 pages each, of detailed documentation; eye-witness accounts, many of them backed by neutral observers, which is still 'classified' and held in archives with their publication forbidden.
"Don't mind the five or more million Germans. Stalin will see to them... they will cease to exist." Winston Churchill
ALFRED M DeZAYAS, AUTHORITY ON THE EXPULSIONS "Although not officially taboo in America or Great Britain, the facts of the German expulsion were never given adequate coverage in the Press. As a consequence, most Americans and Britons do not know that there was an expulsion at all, much less that western authorization of the principle of compulsory population transfers made the American and British Governments accomplices in one of the most inhuman enterprises in the history of Western civilization."
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THE ALLIED TERROR BOMBING OF GERMANY
“A MOST UNCIVILISED MEANS OF WARFARE”
During the war, more bombs by weight were dropped on the city of Berlin than
were released on the whole of Great Britain during the entire war. All German
towns and cities above 50,000 population were from 50% to 80% destroyed.
Dresden, an unprotected city was incinerated with an estimated 135,000 civilian
inhabitants burned and buried in the ruins. Hamburg was totally destroyed and
70,000 civilians died in the most appalling circumstances. Cologne one of
Christian Germany’s most beautiful cities was turned into a moonscape. As
Hamburg burned the winds feeding the three-mile high flames reached twice
hurricane speed to exceeded 150 miles per hour. Trees three feet in diameter on
the outskirts of the city, were sucked from the ground by the supernatural
forces of these winds and hurled miles into the city-inferno, as were vehicles,
men, women... and children. The volcanic flames reached 1,500 metres with gases
as high again caused meteorological reaction as high as the stratosphere.
Likewise Frankfurt and other cities like them. Between 1940 and 1945, sixty-one
German cities with a total population of 25 million souls were destroyed of
devastated in a bombing campaign that was initiated by the British government.
Destruction on this scale had no other purpose than the indiscriminate mass
murder of as many German people as possible quite regardless of their civilian
status. It led to bombing retaliation resulting in 60,000 British dead and
86,000 injured.
THE MOST UNCIVILISED FORM OF WARFARE
The British war historian and strategist, Captain Sir. Basil Liddell Hart
declared that through this strategy victory had been achieved "through
practicing the most uncivilized means of warfare that the world had known since
the Mongol invasions." The Evolution of Warfare. Baber & Faber, 1946,
p.75
"Was absolutely contrary to international law." Said British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who added: "The British Government would never resort to the deliberate attack on women and children for the purposes of mere terrorism."
HITLER'S REVULSION
Adolf Hitler was repelled by the thought of bombs raining down on civilian
populations. "The construction of bombing aeroplanes would soon be
abandoned as superfluous and ineffective if bombing as such were branded as an
illegal barbarity. If, through the Red Cross Convention, it definitely turned
out possible to prevent the killing of a defenseless wounded man or prisoner,
then it ought to be equally possible, by analogous convention, and finally to
stop the bombing of equally defenseless civil populations. "I owe it to my
position not to admit any doubt as to the possibility of maintaining peace. The
people want peace. It must be possible for governments to maintain it. We
believe that if the nations of the world could agree to destroy all their gas
and inflammatory and explosive bombs it would be a much more useful achievement
than using them to destroy each other." Adolf Hitler
WHO WAS THE FIRST TO BOMB CIVILIANS?
"Hitler only undertook the bombing of British civilian targets reluctantly
three months after the RAF had commenced bombing German civilian targets. Hitler
would have been willing at any time to stop the slaughter. Hitler was genuinely
anxious to reach with Britain an agreement confining the action of aircraft to
battle zones." J.M Spaight. CB. CBE. Bombing Vindicated, p.47. Principal
Secretary to the Air Ministry
"Churchill was obsessed with getting America into the war. He tried to frighten Roosevelt with the prospect of an early German victory. He searched for an outrage, such as the sinking of the Lusitania in the First World War that would arouse American public opinion. German bombing of British civilians might well achieve this. But for weeks it looked as if the Germans had no intention of being so obliging." The First Casualty, Phillip Knightley, Andre Deutsch. London. 1975
THE FIRST BREACH OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
"This raid on the night of May 11th 1940, although in itself trivial, was
an epoch-marking event since it was the first deliberate breach of the
fundamental rule of civilized warfare that hostilities must only be waged
against the enemy combatant forces, Their flight marked the end of an epoch
which had lasted for two and one-half centuries." F.J.P Veale, Advance to
Barbarism, p.172
"The first 'area' air attack of the war was carried out by 134 British bombers on the German city of Mannheim, on the 16th December 1940. The object of this attack, as Air Chief Marshall Peirse later explained, was, 'to concentrate the maximum amount of damage in the centre of the town.'" The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany. (H.M Stationery Office, London, 1961)
As early as 1953 H.M Stationery Office published the first volume of a work, The Royal Air Force, 1939 - 1945, The Fight at Odds.p.122 described as 'officially commissioned and based throughout on official documents which had been read and approved by the Air Ministry Historical Branch, its author, Dennis Richards, reveals that: "If the Royal Air Force raided the Ruhr, destroying oil plants with its most accurately placed bombs and urban property with those that went astray, the outcry for retaliation against Britain might prove too strong for the German generals to resist. Indeed, Hitler himself would probably lead the clamour. The attack on the Ruhr was therefore an informal invitation to the Luftwaffe to bomb London." "We began to bomb objectives on the German mainland before the Germans began to bomb objectives on the British mainland.” J.M. Spaight, CB., CBE., Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry / "Because we were doubtful about the psychological effect of propagandist distortion of the truth that it was we who started the strategic bombing offensive, we have shrunk from giving our great decision of May,11th, 1940, the publicity it deserves." Bombing Vindicated. J.M. Spaight, CB. CBE, Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry "Air Marshall Tedder made every effort to be a worthy pupil of his superior, Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The Marshall told high British officers that Germany had lost the war because she had not followed the principle of total warfare."
New York Times, January, 10th 1946
"Retaliation was certain if we carried the war into Germany... there was a reasonable possibility that our capital and industrial centres would not have been attacked if we had continued to refrain from attacking those of Germany." J.M. Spaight, CB. CBE. Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry
"The primary purpose of these raids was to goad the Germans into undertaking reprisal raids of a similar character on Britain. Such raids would arouse intense indignation in Britain against Germany and so create a war psychosis without which it would be impossible to carry on a modern war." Dennis Richards, The Royal Air Force, 1939 - 1945; The Fight at Odds. H.M Stationery Office
"It gave Coventry and Birmingham, Sheffield and Southampton, the right to look Kiev and Kharkov, Stalingrad and Sebastopol, in the face. Our Soviet allies would be less critical of our inactivity if they had understood what we had done." J.M. Spaight, CB., CBE., Principal Secretary to the Air Ministry
THE TRUTH HIDDEN FROM THE BRITISH PUBLIC
"It is one of the greatest triumphs of modern emotional engineering that,
in spite of the plain facts of the case which could never be disguised or even
materially distorted, the British public, throughout the Blitz Period (1940 -
1941), remained convinced that the entire responsibility for their sufferings it
was undergoing rested on the German leaders. Too high praise cannot, therefore,
be lavished on the British emotional engineers for the infinite skill with which
the public mind was conditioned prior to and during a period of unparalleled
strain." Advance to Barbarism, P.168. Mitre Press, London. F.J.P Veale,
British Jurist
"... the inhabitants of Coventry, for example continued to imagine that their sufferings were due to the innate villainy of Adolf Hitler without a suspicion that a decision, splendid or otherwise, of the British War Cabinet, was the decisive factor in the case." F.J.P Veale. Advance to Barbarism, P.169
"One of the most unhealthy features of the bombing offensive was that the War Cabinet - and in particular the Secretary for Air, Archibald Sinclair (now Lord Thurso) felt it necessary to repudiate publicly the orders which they themselves had given to Bomber Command." R.H.S Crosman. Labour Minister, Minister of Housing. Sunday Telegraph, Oct.1st, 1961
"Is terror bombing now part of our policy? Why is it that the people of this country who are supposed to be responsible for what is going on, are the only people who may not know what is being done in their name? On the other hand, if terror bombing be part of our policy, why was this statement put out at all? I think we shall live to rue the day we did this, and that it, (The bombing of Dresden) will stand for all time as a blot on our escutcheon.” Richard Stokes, M.P. This Member of Parliament was referring to the Associated Press Correspondent of Supreme Allied Headquarters in Paris, which had gloatingly described: "this unprecedented assault in daylight on the refugee-crowded capital, fleeing from the Russian tide in the East. The report had been widely broadcast in America, and by Paris Radio. It was suppressed in Britain for fear of public revulsion.
"Thus, in a minute dated 28th February, 1943, Sir Archibald Sinclair explained to Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, that it was necessary to stifle all public discussion on the subject because if the truth had been disclosed in response to the enquiries being made by influential political and religious leaders, their inevitable condemnation would impair the morale of the bomber crews and consequently their bombing efficiency." F.J.P Veale, Advance to Barbarism, p.29
WORKING CLASS TARGETED FOR HIGH KILL RATIOS
"The third and last phase of the British air offensive against Germany
began in March, 1942, with the adoption of the Lindemann Plan by the British War
Cabinet, and continued with undiminished ferocity until the end of the war in
May, 1945. The bombing during this period was not, as the Germans complained,
indiscriminate. On the contrary. It was concentrated on working class houses
because, as Professor Lindemann maintained, a higher percentage of bloodshed per
ton of explosives dropped could be expected from bombing houses built close
together, rather than by bombing higher class houses surrounded by
gardens." Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P Veale, British Author and Jurist
SLAYING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD
"I am in full agreement (of terror bombing). I am all for the bombing of
working class areas in German cities. I am a Cromwellian - I believe in 'slaying
in the name of the Lord!" Sir. Archibald Sinclair, Secretary for Air
WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO BE SLAUGHTERED FIRST
"They (the British Air Chiefs) argued that the desired result, of reducing
German industrial production, would be more readily achieved if the homes of the
workers in the factories were destroyed; if the workers were kept busy arranging
for the burial of their wives and children, output might reasonably be expected
to fall." Advance to Barbarism, F.J.P Veale; Distinguished British Jurist
"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing German cities simply for the sake of increasing terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed." Winston Churchill to Chief of Air Staff, Sir. Charles Portal, March,28th,1945
EVEN CHURCHILL WAS REPELLED
"In the course of the film showing the bombing of German towns from the
air, very well and dramatically done, W.C (Winston Churchill) suddenly sat bolt
upright and said to me: 'Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far'"
Personal Experiences, Lord Casey. Constable. London 1962
DEATH OF A CITY
"The long suppressed story of the worst massacre in the history of the
world."
R.H.S Crosman, Labour Minister
"The devastation of Dresden in February, 1945, was one of those crimes against humanity whose authors would have been arraigned at Nuremberg if that court had not been perverted.” Richard.H.S Crosman, Labour Government Minister
A BOMBER’S REGRET
On August 8 1984 a Mr A. Williams of Nottingham wrote to the British Sunday
newspaper, The Observer: "I have read the reviews of the biographies of Sir
Arthur Harris with extremely mixed feelings and also Robert Kee's letter.
(8th,July). On 13th, February, 1945, I was a navigator on one of the Lancaster
bombers which devastated Dresden. I well remember the briefing by our Group
Captain. We were told that the Red Army was thrusting towards Dresden and that
the town would be crowded with refugees and that the centre of the town would be
full of women and children. Our aiming point would be the market place. I recall
that we were somewhat uneasy, but we did as we were told. We accordingly bombed
the target and on our way back our wireless operator picked up a German
broadcast accusing the RAF of terror tactics, and that 65,000 civilians had
died. We dismissed this as German propaganda. The penny didn't drop until a few
weeks later when my squadron received a visit from the Crown Film Unit who were
making the wartime propaganda films. There was a mock briefing, with one notable
difference. The same Group Captain now said, 'as the market place would be
filled with women and children on no account would we bomb the centre of the
town. Instead, our aiming point would be a vital railway junction to the east. I
can categorically confirm that the Dresden raid was a black mark on Britain's
war record. The aircrews on my squadron were convinced that this wicked act was
not instigated by our much respected guvnor 'Butch' Harris but by Churchill. I
have waited 29 years to say this, and it still worries me."
Welcome and revealing though Mr Williams letter is, a subsequent revelations as to 'Butch' Harris's murderous inclinations expose a similar naiveté on Mr,. Williams part:
‘Bomber Butch Harris wrote in the Sunday Times (January 10th 1942) "What we want to do in addition to the horrors of fire is to bring the masonry crashing down on the Boche, to kill Boche and to terrify Boche."
Nobody knows for sure just how many people innocent civilians were bombed and burned to death in Dresden. What is beyond dispute was that its destruction was of no military significance whatsoever. It did not shorten the war by as much as a minute, nor was it intended to. The war to all intents and purposes was won and the city itself had no military, political or industrial significance. The British Government were well aware that it was defenceless. Its 600,000 population was swollen by an estimated further 500,000 refugees fleeing from the Red Army. The RAF were as usual dropping propaganda leaflets on the city, and on the night before the raids, 13th, February, with a leaflet headed, 'Partei Flieft aus Dresden', read by the defeated population, it revealed that: 'All the schools in the city had been closed to provide shelter for an army of refugees arriving from the east.' When the scale of Bomber Command's 'success' in what was described as 'the worst massacre in the history of the world' became known this exposed the cowardly RAF’s lying claim not to have known nothing of the refugees.
CHILDREN MACHINE-GUNNED
The strafing of columns of refugees by both American and British fighter planes
was par for the course: ".... it is said that these (zoo) animals and
terrified groups of refugees were machine-gunned as they tried to escape across
the Grosser Garten by low-flying planes and that many bodies riddled by bullets
were found later in this park.” Der Tod von Dresden, Axel Rodenberger,
February 25th 1951
In Dresden, "Even the huddled remnants of a childrens' choir were machine-gunned in a street bordering a park.” David Irving, The Destruction of Dresden
THE FIRESTORM OF HAMBURG
The Police President of Hamburg reveals the horror of allied bombing attacks:
"Its horror is revealed in the howling and raging of the firestorms, the
hellish noise of exploding bombs and the death cries of martyred human beings as
well as the big silence after the raids. Speech is impotent to portray the
measure of the horror, which shook the people for ten days and nights and the
traces of which were written indelibly on the face of the city and its
inhabitants. No flight of imagination will ever succeed in measuring and
describing the gruesome scenes of horror in the many buried air shelters.
Posterity can only bow its head in honour of the fate of these innocents,
sacrificed by the murderous lust of a sadistic enemy." "Not even
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, suffering the smashing blows of nuclear explosions,
could match the utter hell of Hamburg." Martin Caidin, The Night Hamburg
Died, Ballantyne Books, New York, 1960
The British city of Coventry often comes to mind when justification for the bombing campaign is sought. Notwithstanding the fact that it has since been proved that the bombing of Coventry like the sinking of the Lusitania was deliberately set up as 'a means to an end', it might be remembered in terms of proportion that Coventry lost just 100 acres through bombing. "In those terrible ten days of mid-1943, the British bombers gutted more than six thousand acres of Hamburg.” Says Martin Caidin.
The equivalent of sixty Coventrys in just ten days. Three hundred times as many people died in Hamburg during the ten-day blitz as died in Coventry during the entire course of the war.
WORSE THAN HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI AND TOKYO FIRESTORMS
"The fire and horror lasted ten full days. This is what makes Hamburg - and
the loss of some seventy thousand men, women and children - stand out as the
worst of the disasters visited upon civilisation during the insanity of World
War 2.” Martin Caidin
THE CHILDREN "Of the children these dreadful nights, what can be said? Their fright became horror and then panic when their tiny minds became capable of grasping the fact that their parents could no longer help them in their distress. They lost their reason and an overwhelming terror took over. Their world had become the shrieking centre of an erupting volcano from which there could be no physical escape. Nothing that hell offered could be feared more. By the hand of man they became creatures, human in form but not in mind. Strangled noises hissed from them as they staggered pitifully through the streets in which tar and asphalt ran as streams. Some of these tiny creatures ran several hundred feet. Others managed only twenty, maybe ten feet. Their shoes caught fire and then their feet. The lower parts of their legs became flickering sticks of flame. Here were Joans of Arcs.... thousands of them. All who had perished unjustly on the fires of the Middle Ages were as nothing when compared with what was happening that night. The sounds of many were unintelligible and undoubtedly many more called for their parents from whom they were parted by death or by accident. They grasped their tortured limbs, their tiny burning legs until they were no longer able to stand or run. And then they would crash to the ground where they would writhe in the bubbling tar until death released them from their physical misery.” Explains Martin Caidin "It was murder in the city. I knew that the firestorms that came later were terrible, and unlike anything that ever happened. But the fires in the city were as bad as anything I'd ever seen in the war so far - and I had been on a goodly portion of the major attacks. A few of the Lancastrians got caught in the flue of superheated air as they passed over the city at 16,000 feet, and it was as if they were nothing more than wood chips in a storm at sea.... they were thrown about by the heat and even flipped over on their backs. Everything sort of went to hell until the Lancs managed to get free of the severe turbulence. “We howled with glee as we listened in on the Jerry wireless and heard them going crazy." Said a Bomber Command pilot.
"The brutal, allied air offensive against Germany proved to be costly, ineffective and of doubtful morality.” An analyst later said.
PHOSPHOROUS - THE OUTLAWED TERROR WEAPON
The use of phosphorous bombs, by the British government on raids against
Germany, were outlawed under international law because its use has no other
purpose than to strike terror in its means of causing death and injury. It is a
napalm-like chemical which when alight cannot be extinguished: Of its use in a
purely military sense: "The shower of molten burning particles that sprays
up from a phosphorous shell burst sears its victims with agonised burns. Used
against pill boxes, the flame not only burns occupants, but also suffocates
them.” Life Magazine, 19th, June, 1944.
"The exploding phosphorous bombs sprayed their contents indiscriminately and clothing caught fire and had to be torn free from the body quickly otherwise the wearer would suffer terrible nightmarish burns. When the liquid splattered on to peoples hair, the victim was doomed. There was no chance to cut off the hair. The chemical globules, like a burning jelly, burned fiercely setting aflame the entire head and indeed, the head itself burned. These terrified and pain-wracked people were seen to leap about in a frenzy, dashing their heads against the ground in blind panic - anything to douse the flames. One can extinguish an ordinary fire by smothering it with clothes but such methods are useless against phosphorous. It continued to burn and set afire any material that was thrown over it. Such people in these circumstances could only be left to their sad fate amidst the terrifying background glow of the streets in flames. They writhed in the rubble-strewn roads with their bodies partially ablaze. Others were nearer to the River Alster and dozens of these shrieking demented souls, trailing tongues of flaming smoke and fire, dashed madly to the water to fling themselves into the lifesaving liquid. Men, women and children too, ran hysterically, falling and stumbling, getting up, tripping and falling again, rolling over and over. Most of them managed to regain their feet and made it to the water. But many of them never made it and were left behind, their feet drumming in blinding pain on the overheated pavements amidst the rubble, until there came one last convulsing shudder from the smoking 'thing' on the ground, and then no further movement."
"Those who made it to the water found the safety they had sought so desperately - but incredibly, some faced a choice that stuns the mind with horror. Water prevents phosphorous jelly from burning because it denies the chemical the one thing it needs to burn; oxygen. Those with the blazing chemical on their arms, legs and their bodies were able to douse the flames by submerging the burning areas. But many had the blazing phosphorous jelly on their faces and heads. Certainly the spluttering chemicals went out as the victims ducked their heads beneath the water, but the moment they brought their heads up again to break the surface and take a breath of air, the phosphorous burst into flames again immediately. And so the victims were faced with the choice. Death by drowning or death by burning; men, women and children. While others watched sick and despairingly, the victims of phosphorous on faces and heads thrashed wildly in the brackish waters, screaming with pain and frustration. Spluttering and choking, they alternatively burned or drowned."
Martin Caidin
Martin Caidin spent years trying to get details on the use of phosphorous by both the allies, and in his own words he has 'met with less than the success required by the historian to include the episode in a documentary book.' He noted: "Perhaps the solution to the total absence of any reference in official (post war) German documents is explained in the story told to me by a U.S Army officer, who learned that portions of the documents on the after effects of the Hamburg attacks were ordered to be destroyed and all reference to the surviving victims of phosphorous bombs stricken forever from the records.”
"Phosphorous burns were not infrequent." Says a U.S Strategic Bombing Survey / Phosphorous was used "because of its demonstrated ability to depress the morale of the Germans.” Official British Source.
INVASION "A cataclysmic blast of exploding, splintering steel rent the earth before us and it seemed like the world was coming to an end. The Americans were blasting out a path for a forward drive Man and beast shuddered in their tracks. Whole towns were disintegrating. Life seemed to disappear from the scene. It was the most terrifying destructive force of warfare Germany has ever seen. " . . and for an hour and a half more than 2,000 bombers and hundreds of guns pounded the German countryside, making the earth dance before this mighty man-made force... minefields went up as though touched by an electric switch. Near the end we were using 11-tonners (bombs) which crews said caused their bombers to bounce up over 500 feet when the huge 25-foot missiles were released." Henry T. Gorrell (UP) Chicago Daily News, November 1st 1944
"I can tell you that Germany has been destroyed utterly and completely." Said U.S General Bradley, Associated Press, London, June 11th, 1945. "I just wouldn't know where to begin to rebuild Berlin."added General Eisenhower to Associated Press. London, June11th, 1945.
"The capital of the Third Reich is a heap of gaunt, burned-out, flame-seared buildings. It is a desert of a hundred thousand dunes made up of brick and powdered masonry. Over this hangs the pungent stench of death.... it is impossible to exaggerate in describing the destruction.... down town Berlin look as like nothing man could have contrived. Driving down the famous Frankfurt Alee, I did not see a single building where you could have set up as business of even selling apples." Eddie Gilmore, Associated Press, Berlin, June,9th, 1945.
IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS
"Towards the end of his life the Prof.' (Lindemann) made a remark on more
than one occasion with such an air of seriousness that he seemed to regard it as
his testament of wisdom, and I accordingly feel it incumbent upon me to record
it here, although not in perfect sympathy with it. 'Do you know,' he asked,
'what the future historians will regard as the most important event of this
age?"' Well, what is it? 'It will not be Hitler and the Second World War,
it will not be the release of nuclear energy, it will not be the menace of
Communism.' These negatives seemed very comprehensive. He put on an expression
of extreme severity and turned down the corners of his lips. 'It will be the
abdication of the White man.' Then he nodded his head up and down several times
to drive home his proposition." The Prof., R.F Harrod, McMillan, 1959,
p261.
The terror bombing offensive cost not only the lives of over a million German civilians and brought about the total destruction of many of Europe's finest and most historical cities, but also cost the lives of 58,888 RAF air crew.... nearly the same number of British junior officers during the First World War. The great irony of this historical blunder is that it had the opposite effect. German morale rose as did production. "This lesson was lost on the British Air Force which continued to hold that 'strategic bombing' was the all and end all of air power. This fallacy not only prolonged the war, but went far to render the 'peace' which followed it unprofitable to Britain and disastrous to the world in general." General J.F.C Fuller, The Second World War, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1948.
"In effect, there is no doubt that in ordering the destruction of large enemy cities, which represented an important part of the very basis of European culture and civilisation, the Allied political leaders have incurred a dire responsibility before the bar of history."Major General J.F.C Fuller "Even the senseless and highly culture-destroying terror acts, against for example, Lubeck and Dresden carried out by the Allied pilots should have been investigated and brought before a proper court of justice.” Said Major General H. Bratt, Royal Swedish Army
His view win wide support and typical was the remarks made by Brazil’s most eminent philosopher: "A nation which spreads over another a sheet of inevitably deadly gases or eradicates entire cities from the earth by the explosion of atomic bombs, does not have the right to judge anyone for war crimes; it has already committed the greatest atrocity, equal to no other atrocity; it has killed - amidst unspeakable torments - hundreds of thousands of innocent people.” Hon. Lydio Machado Bandeira de Mello, Dr. Juris. Brazilian Professor of Criminal Law; author of more than 40 works on law/philosophy
"As for crimes against humanity, those governments which ordered the destruction of German cities, thereby destroying irreplaceable cultural values and making burning torches out of women and children, should also have stood before the bar of justice." Hon Jaan Lattik. Estonian statesman, diplomat and historian
"It was the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by the so-called strategic air forces during the Second World War which culminated in the destruction of Dresden (a wholly non-military objective) in February, 1945, that completely pulverized the code of civilized warfare and returned the treatment of military opponents and civilians to the level of the primary warfare that had prevailed among the savages, the Assyrians, and the medieval Mongols. On the basis of the most authoritative British sources, Mr. Veale demonstrates clearly that it was the British and not the Nazis who introduced indiscriminate strategic bombing, despite the efforts of Hitler to avert this reversion to barbaric practices." Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D. American historian
"In terms of personal success, there has been no career more fortunate than that of Winston Churchill. In terms of human suffering to millions of people and destruction of the noble edifice of mankind there has been no career more disastrous." The European and English Journal
"One closes these volumes feeling, uneasily, that the true heroes of the story they tell are neither the contending air marshals, nor even the 58,888 officers and men of Bomber Command who were killed in action. They were the inhabitants of the German cities under attack; the men, women and children who stoically endured and worked on among the flaming ruins of their homes and factories, up till the moment when the allied armies overran them." London Times reviewer on the British Official History of the Strategic Air Offensive.
"There are no final figures on the number of civilians killed as a result of the mass-bombing, but 2,000,000 would be a very restrained figure (estimate)." Professor Harry Elmer Barnes, Ph.D. American historian
KASSEL : "Kassel suffered over 300 air raids, some carrying waves of 1,000 bombers; British by night, American by day. When on April 4th 1945 Kassel surrendered, of a population of 250,000, just 15,000 were left alive." Jack Bell, Chicago Daily News Foreign Service, Kassel, May,15th, 1946 "Countless smaller towns and villages had been razed to the ground or turned into ghost towns - like Wiener Neustadt in Austria, which emerged from the air raids and the street fighting with only eighteen houses intact and its population reduced from 45,000 to 860.” In the Ruins of the Reich, Douglas Botting. George, Allen & Unwin. London. 1985.
AND THE OTHER CITIES: Berlin, Hamburg, Dortmund, Essen, Dresden, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Dusseldorf, Hanover, Bremen, Wuppertal, Vienna, Duisburg. Munich, Magdeburg, Leipzig, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Kiel, Gelsdenkirchen, Bochum, Aachen, Wurzburg, Darmstadt, Krefeld, Munster, Munchen Gladbach,, Braunschweig, Ludwishafen, Remscheid, Pforzheim, Osnabruck, Mainz, Bielefeld, Gieben, Duren, Solingen, Wilhelmshafen, Karlsruhe, Oberhausen, Heilbronn, Augsburg, Hamm, Knittelfeld, Luneburg, Cuxhaven, Kulmback, Hagen, Saarbrucken, Freiburg, Graz, Koblenz, Ulm, Bonn, Bremmenhaven, Wanne-Eickel, Woms, Lubeck, Schweinfurt, Kleve, Wiener Neustadt, Wiesbaden, Paderborn, Bocholt, Hanau, Hildesheim, Emden, Siegen, Pirmasons, Hale, Bayreuth, Kreuznach, Witten, Aschaffenburg, Kaiserlautern, Gladbeck, Dorsten, Innsbruck, Neumunster, Linz, Klagenfurt, Reutlingen, Recklinghausen, Reuel, Regensburg, Homberg, Elmshorn, Wetzler, Vilach, Hamelin, Konigsburg, Moers, Passau, Solbad Hall I.T, Coburg, Attnang-Puchheim, Friedsrichhafen, Frankfurt-Oder, Danzig, Bozen, Chemnitz, Rostock, Schwerte, Plauen, Rome, Bad Kreuznach, Neapel, Genoa, Mailand, Turin.
Note: Martin Caidin, heavily quoted in 'A Most Uncivilised Means of Warfare' is one of the world's leading authorities on military-science subjects, with a world-wide reputation as an expert in fields that cover military and civilian aviation, rockets and missiles, astronautics, and the effects of conventional and nuclear weapons. He is a foremost authority on atomic warfare and his research findings are referred to throughout the world. Positions held include Atomic Warfare Specialist, N.Y State Civil Defence Commission, Intelligence and Public Information, U.S 5th Air Force, Consultant to the Commander of the U.S Air Force Missile Test Centre. He is the author of over 20 books, has worked at Cape Canaveral and Patrick Air Force Base, and is the winner of the James J. Strebig Memorial Trophy, awarded by the Aviation Writers Association.
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SCANDAL EMERGING HOW ALLIES TREATED GERMAN POWs
“War crime trials for allied soldiers a possibility.” Says analyst
“British and allied troops appearing as defendants in war crimes trials with brutal Serbs and former Red Army thugs is a distinct possibility”, says top Second World War analyst, Michael Walsh. His research exposes allied ill-treatment of axis POWs. He says, “the scale of abuse of Prisoners of War was contrary to the Geneva and other conventions to which Britain was a signatory. As late as 1948, three years after the war’s end, the British Government was threatened with being brought before international tribunals for abuse and illegal enslavement. Typically, British POW camps were worse than Belsen even after the war had ended and war disruption ceased. Associated Press Photographer, Henry Griffin who had taken the pictures of corpses in Buchenwald and Dachau and was now visiting Allied POW camps said : "The only difference I can see between these men and those corpses is that here they are still breathing." Ralph F. Keeling, Institute of American Economics added: "According to revelations by members of the House of Commons, 130,000 former German officers and men were held during the winter of 1945-46 in British camps in Belgium under conditions which British officers have described as 'not much better than Belsen.'
TORTURE AND BRUTALITY
According to Cyril Connolly, one of England’s most acclaimed writers
"British guards imprisoned German troops and tortured them” . He
described how “they were so possessed by propaganda about German 'Huns' , that
they obviously enjoyed demonstrating their atrocities to the visiting
journalists. A British reporter named Moorehead present observed that 'a young
British medical officer and a captain of engineers managed the camp (Bergen-Belsen)
The captain was in the best of moods. When we approached the cells of gaoled
guards, the sergeant lost his temper. The captain said; 'This morning we had an
interrogation. I'm afraid the prisoners don't look exactly nice.' The cells were
opened for the journalists. The prisoners lay there, crumpled, moaning, covered
with gore. The man next to me made vain attempts to get to his feet and finally
managed to stand up. He stood there trembling, and tried to stretch out his arms
as if fending off blows. "Up!" yelled the sergeant. "Come off the
wall." They pushed themselves off from the wall and stood there, swaying.
In another cell the medical officer had just finished an interrogation.
"Up." yelled the officer. "Get up." The man lay in his blood
on the floor. He propped two arms on a chair and tried to pull himself up. A
second demand and he succeeded in getting to his feet. He stretched his arms
towards us. "Why don't you kill me off?" he moaned. "The dirty
bastard is jabbering this all morning." the sergeant stated.
"The prisoners lived through the winter in tents and slept on the bare ground under one blanket each. They say they are underfed and beaten and kicked by guards. Many have no underclothes or boots." reported the Chicago Tribune Press Service, London, May,19,1946. "In the summer of 1946 an increasing number of prisoners (of-war) were escaping from British slave camps with British civilian aid. Accounts of the chases by military police are reminiscent of pre-Civil War pursuits by fleeing Negro fugitives." according to an Associated Press dispatch. London, August, 27th, 1946, 16 months after the war ended.
CIVILIANS; WOMEN AND CHILDREN MACHINE-GUNNED
Refugees were treated even worse in British controilled Austria and Yugoslavia.
There the concentration camps were run jointly by Britain and the NKVD,
forerunners to the dreaded KGB. One British officer described how "The
prisoners (civilians) were treated coarsely but not brutally. They were pushed
and shoved, but there was no resistance, no fighting or trying to get back or
get away. They were all completely docile, resigned to their fate. The soldiers
collected them all quickly into groups and marched them away to be
machine-gunned in groups.' The officer added, 'Some of them didn't get very far
I'm afraid. At the back of the station there was a wood, a copse, and they
seemed to be marched behind this copse. Shortly afterwards there were quite a
number of sustained bursts of machine-gun fire. I can't say for certain what
happened, because I couldn't see the shooting. But I am pretty sure that a lot
of them were shot there and then, not on the siding itself but just around the
corner of the wood." This is typical of many accounts when units of the
British Army working with Red Army NKVD officers, hunted down and butchered tens
of thousands of Cossack civilian refugees in Austria, in summer, 1945 after the
war had ended.
A BLOOD-SPATTERED BRITISH TRANSPORT TRAIN
Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians of many nationalities were hunted
down and rounded up like cattle being taken to the Red Army’s abbatoirs. One
account described how ‘the whole train was bespattered with blood. They were
open-plan carriages, and I remember the bloodstains where bodies had been
dragged right down the corridor between the seats and down three of four steps.
The lavatories were absolutely covered in blood...." "Another such
patrol, consisting of two Red Army officers and four British soldiers set off
into the hills on horseback on June,8th. They captured one such group on the
lower slopes.... "The Cossacks ran off, leaving just a few, mainly women
and children, who were too weak to move. One soldier spotted a Cossack in the
distance, aimed his rifle at him, fired and saw him drop. .... as he was not
seen to rise again it was assumed he had been killed." Captain Duncan
McMillan remembers, 'Being guided to a small railway station where there was a
barbed-wire enclosure' He saw the Cossacks being unloaded from the trucks and
described how they were stripped of their possessions, even food before being
marched away. 'Many British soldiers who were there have testified that they
heard the rattle of machine-guns nearby just moments after the prisoners were
removed." James Davidson said: "We thought that machine-gunning must
be the finish of them. We thought they were just taken back there and
slaughtered." These awful accounts were described in Nicholas Bethell book,
The Last Secret published by Futura in 1974. Further accounts were suppressed by
the English legal apparatus.
SLAVE LABOUR IN THE CENTURY
In direct contravention of the Geneva Convention (Enslavement of
Prisoners-of-War is a violation of the Geneva Convention. Article.75) which
Britain was a signatory to Great Britain in August, 1946 (fifteen months after
the war's end) according to the International Red Cross, had 460,000 German
prisoners slaving for her." "... when they (German POWs) learned upon
arrival in British and French ports that they were to be worked indefinitely as
slaves, they became sullen." said Arthur Veysey of Chicago Tribune Press
Service on May 28th1946. PROFITING FROM GERMAN SLAVES
Arthur Veysey appalled the the London-based government’s abuse of human rights and its illegality under the Geneva Convention said, "The British Government nets over $250,000,000 annually from its slaves. The Government, which frankly calls itself the 'owner' of the prisoners, hires the men out to any employer needing men, charging the going rate for such work - usually $15 to $20 a week. It pays the slaves from 10 to 20 cents a day. The prisoners are never paid in cash, but are given credits either in the form of vouchers or credits."
THE SOVIET UNION FOLLOWS BRITAIN’S EXAMPLE
When attempts were made to prevent Stalin from ‘procuring’ five million
German prisoners, many of them civilians, as slave labourers, the Soviets
pointed out that Britain was using slaves too. The German prisoners in Russian
hands are estimated to number from four to five millions. Eyewitness accounts
describe events when Berlin and Breslau surrendered. “The long grey-green
columns of prisoners were marched east downcast and fearful towards huge depots
near Leningrad, Moscow, Minsk, Stalingrad, Kiev, Kharkov and Sevastopol. All fit
men had to march 22 miles a day. Those physically handicapped went in handcarts
or carts pulled by spare beasts." This was reported in the congressional
Record on March 29th 1946.
STARVATION OF POWS IN FRANCE
In the notorious camp in the Sarthe District for 20,000 prisoners, inmates
received just 900 calories a day; thus 12 died every day in the hospital. Four
to five thousand are unable to work any more. Recently trains with new prisoners
arrived at the camp; several prisoners had died during the trip, several others
had tried to stay alive by eating coal that had been lying in the freight train
by which they came.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
In the USA where 140,000 prisoners-of-war were shipped, the Catholic Bishops
Conference described how, “Multitudes of civilians and prisoners of war have
been deported and degraded into forced labor unworthy of human beings.”
"Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are put like slaves to forced
labor, although the only thing with which they can be reproached is the fact
that they were soldiers. Many of these poor fellows are without news from home
and have not been allowed to send a sign of life to their dear ones."
GERMAN SLAVES HELD IN ALLIED COUNTRIES
United States 140,000 (U.S. Occupation Zone) 100,000 in France, 30,000 in Italy,
14,000 in Belgium. Great Britain 460,000 German slaves. The Soviet Union
4,000,000 - 5,000,000 estimated. France 680,000 German slaves by August, 1946.
Yugoslavia 80,000, Belgium 48,000, Czechoslovakia 45,000, Luxembourg 4,000,
Holland 1,300. Source: International Red Cross
CONDEMNED BY THE INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS
Outraged, the International Red Cross organisation said: "The United
States, Britain and France, nearly a year after peace are violating
International Red Cross agreements they solemnly signed in 1929..... Although
thousands of the former German soldiers are being used in the hazardous work of
clearing mine-fields, sweeping sea mines and razing shattered buildings, the
Geneva Convention expressly forbids employing prisoners 'in any dangerous labour
or in the transport of any material used in warfare.' Henry Wales in Geneva,
Switzerland on April13th1946 added, 'The bartering of captured enemy soldiers by
the victors throws the world back to the dark ages - when feudal barons raided
adjoining duchies to replenish their human live stock. It is an iniquitous
system and an evil precedent because it is wide open for abuses with difficulty
in establishing responsibility. It is manifestly unjust and sell them for
political reasons as the African Negroes were a century ago."
GERMANS WERE FAR MORE HUMANE
By contrast the German armed forces behaved impeccably towards their
prisoners-of-war. Perhaps we should have done: "The most amazing thing
about the atrocities in this war is that there have been so few of them. I have
come up against few instances where the Germans have not treated prisoners
according to the rules, and respected the Red Cross the The Progressive
newspaper reported in February, 4th,1945. Allan Wood, London Correspondent of
the London Express agreed. "The Germans even in their greatest moments of
despair obeyed the Convention in most respects. True it is that there were front
line atrocities - passions run high up there - but they were incidents, not
practices, and maladministration of their American prison camps was very
uncommon." His words were echoed by Lieutenant Newton L. Marguiles. U.S
Assistant Judge Advocate, Jefferson Barracks, April, 27th,1945. "It is true
that the Reich exacted forced labour from foreign workers, but it is also true
that, they were for the most part paid and fed well." "I think some of
the persons found themselves better off than at any time in their lives
before." said Dr.James K.Pollack, Allied Military Government. "What
did the Germans do to get efficient production from forced labour that we were
not able to do with Germans working down the mines? They fed their help and fed
them well." Said Max H. Forester, Chief of AMG's Coal and Mining Division
in July 1946.
From WITNESS TO HISTORY by Michael Walsh
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