Listen to former German soldiers talk about World War II.
June 28, 2017
April 19, 2017
The anniversary of the liberation of Dachau is coming up soon
My photo of the gate into the Dachau camp
I was the wife of a US Army officer in 1957 and my husband and I were living in Germany, a few miles from Dachau. I had read about Dachau but I thought that it would be too horrible for me to visit. I had a chance to go to visit the former camp, but I declined to go. I wish now that I had gone.
To read all about Dachau, go to this section of my website: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/index.html
This section on my website is all about the liberation of the camp: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/index.html
This page is especially interesting:
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/LiberationDay3.html
The following quote is from my website:
Begin quote
Two Divisions of the US Seventh Army were involved in the liberation of the Dachau main camp on April 29, 1945, and with each passing year, the argument grows more heated over which division really liberated the camp, the 42nd Infantry Division or the 45th Infantry Division. The 20th Armored Division was providing support and they are included as liberators of Dachau by the US Army. However, Japanese and African-American veterans have also made claims that their divisions or battalions liberated Dachau.
End quote
February 2, 2017
who remembers the bombing of Dresden?
The German city of Dresden was bombed by Allied planes on the night of Feb. 13 & 14 in 1945. World War II was almost over; why did a beautiful German city, that had nothing to do with the war, have to be destroyed? Funny you should ask!
(FILES) Photo dated 25 February 1945 showing residents and emergency personnel lining up bodies to be burned at the Old Market in the east German city of Dresden, following allied bombings 13 February 1945. AFP PHOTO SLUB DEUTSCHE FOTOTHEK/WALTER HAHN
(Photo credit should read WALTER HAHN/AFP/Getty Images)
This year is the 71st anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. You can read about it in the news at http://www.globalresearch.ca/71st-anniversary-of-dresden-fire-bombing-allied-war-crime-prelude-to-the-cold-war/5507765
I wrote about the bombing of Dresden on this very early blog post:
https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/the-bombing-of-coventry-and-dresden/
and on this blog post:
https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/more-self-flagellation-by-the-germans/
The music that is playing in the video is Andante Festivo by Finish composer Jean Sibelius.
December 7, 2016
December 7, 1941 — a day that will live in infamy
Pearl Harbor attack
You can listen to President Roosevelt’s “day of infamy” speech here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/07/watch-fdr-s-day-of-infamy-speech.html
I was an 8 year old child when this happened. I recall going to school, the morning after the attack, and hearing that “Pearl Harbor was attacked.” I assumed that Pearl Harbor was a woman who had been attacked. People in America were saying, jokingly, that “She was probably asking for it.”
July 23, 2016
Did Germany really start World War II?
I have been having a lengthy discussion, with one of the regular readers of my blog, about who started World War II, Germany or Poland?
Here is the kosher version of the start of World War II, from this kosher website:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germans-invade-poland
Begin quote from website above
March 31, 2010
American World War II Air Force pilots were prisoners at Buchenwald until rescued by the Luftwaffe
On the last train out of Paris, just before the Allies liberated the city, were 168 American fighter pilots who had been shot down over France. They were sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, not as POWs, but as “terrorfliegers” (terror flyers) because they had allegedly been aiding French Resistance fighters, whom the Nazis called “terrorists.”
Nazi poster called French Resistance an “Army of Crime”
According to the Geneva Convention of 1929, the French Resistance fighters were non-combatants who did not have the rights of Prisoners of War if they were captured. The same rules applied to Americans who were believed to be aiding the French Resistance. That’s why the 168 flyers wound up at the Buchenwald concentration camp instead of a POW camp.
This blog post gives information about a new book that will be coming out soon; the book tells the story of Joseph F. Moser, one of the American flyers who was imprisoned at Buchenwald. According to the book, Joe Moser very narrowly survived bailing out of his P-38 with an engine on fire. He and 167 other Allied pilots were sent to Buchenwald on orders from Berlin to be executed as “terrorfliegers.” Four days before their scheduled “extermination,” they were rescued by Luftwaffe (German Air Force) officers and shipped instead to the most famous POW camp in Germany: Stalag Luft III.
World War II started when France and Great Britain declared war on Germany after Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. By September 28, 1939 Poland had been conquered, with the help of the Soviet Union, which invaded Poland on September 17, 1939. However, Poland never surrendered and there was no peace treaty. The Poles continued to fight throughout World War II, not on the battlefield, but as “illegal combatants” according to the rules of the Geneva Convention of 1929. Captured Polish Resistance fighters were sent to the Dachau concentration camp, instead of being sent to a POW camp.
Germany finally invaded France on May 10, 1940, and on June 17, 1940, Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain, the new prime minister of France, asked the Germans for surrender terms; an Armistice was signed on June 22, 1940. The French agreed to an immediate “cessation of fighting.”
The French Resistance movement was in direct violation of the Armistice signed by the French, which stipulated the following:
“The French Government will forbid French citizens to fight against Germany in the service of States with which the German Reich is still at war. French citizens who violate this provision are to be treated by German troops as insurgents.”
The Buchenwald concentration camp held many French Resistance fighters as prisoners. The photo below shows a monument at Buchenwald in honor of the Resistance fighters.
Buchenwald monument in honor of Resistance fighters
The excerpts from the book about Joe Moser, which were posted on the blog, caught my attention because it was mentioned that the American flyers at Buchenwald complained about the Germans not treating them in accordance with Geneva Convention of 1929.
For example, this quote is from the new book which will soon be published:
After our first meal, we gathered back together in the open area where we had slept. It was about this time that Colonel Phillip Lamason stepped forward. Col. Lamason was the senior officer among the 168 of us, a tall, good looking Squadron Leader from the New Zealand Air Force. I consider it one of the greatest blessings of this challenging time to have Col. Lamason as our commander. His quiet, strong but aggressive leadership was a critical factor not only in holding us together but also in facilitating our eventual release.
“Attention!” he said unexpectedly in his clipped New Zealand accent. We instinctively quickly got up, tried to get ourselves in some semblance of order, and stood stiffly waiting.
“Gentlemen, we have ourselves in a very fine fix indeed,” he went on. “The goons have completely violated the Geneva Convention and are treating us as common thieves and criminals. However, we are soldiers! From this time on, we will also conduct ourselves as our training has taught us and as our countries would expect from us. We will march as a unit to roll call and we will follow all reasonable commands as a single unit.”
The “goons,” to whom Col. Lamason was referring, were the Germans who were fighting on the battlefield while the French, who had signed an Armistice after only 5 weeks, were fighting as what Americans today call “terrorists.” Great Britain and America were aiding the “terrorists” in France, which meant that these flyers, who were captured while allegedly aiding the French Resistance, were fighting in violation of the Geneva Convention.
The American flyers were scheduled to be executed on October 24, 1944, but a Luftwaffe officer came to Buchenwald just in time to rescue them.
Here is another quote from the blog about the forthcoming book:
“One thing is certain, Col. Lamason never let an opportunity pass by where he didn’t make it clear that we strenuously objected to our treatment and that our tormentors were violating the Geneva Convention.”
The attitude of the British and the Americans in World War II was that the Geneva Convention applied only to the Germans. No British or American soldiers were ever put on trial for violating the Geneva Convention with regard to German POWs.
At Dachau, American soldiers executed the Waffen-SS soldiers who had been sent from the battlefield to surrender the camp. At Bergen-Belsen, the British executed some of the Hungarian soldiers who had been sent to the camp to help with the voluntary transfer of the camp to the Allies. After World War II ended, the British held the first trial of the Germans; staff members of the Bergen-Belsen camp were put on trial as war criminals.
Staff members of the Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps were prosecuted by an American Military Tribunal for violating the Geneva Convention with regard to Soviet POWs although the Soviet Union had not signed the Geneva Convention and the Soviets were not treating German soldiers according to its rules.
The British SOE was formed in order to aid the French Resistance, which was a violation of the Geneva Convention since the French had signed an Armistice and promised to stop fighting. After the war, Germans were put on trial for allegedly executing British SOE agents, although there was no proof whatsoever that the agents were even dead.
The Allies made sure that there were no German Resistance fighters after Germany surrendered in World War II; they kept millions of German soldiers in captivity for years after the war. General Dwight D. Eisenhower designated German POWs as Disarmed Enemy Forces (DEF) so that America would not have to follow the Geneva Convention with regard to German POWs. The Soviet Union kept German POWs in camps for ten years after World War II ended.
Out of the 168 flyers that were sent to Buchenwald, 166 survived their two months imprisonment at Buchenwald. Instead of being grateful that Luftwaffe officers took them out of Buchenwald and put them into a POW camp, the survivors of this fiasco are still whining about the Germans not following the Geneva Convention with regard to what we now call “terrorists.” These Allied flyers should have been advised, before they were sent on their mission, that they would not be entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention in the event that they were captured.
March 1, 2010
Band of Brothers TV series
Real life photo of the liberation of Kaufering IV camp
Last night I watched an episode of Band of Brothers for the umpteenth time. I never tire of this TV series. This particular episode was about the 101st Airborne Division (the real life Band of Brothers) when they were in southern Germany near the end of World War II.
The photo above shows the real life scene at the Kaufering IV sub-camp of Dachau, which was near Landsberg am Lech. This scene is very accurately re-created in the Band of Brothers.
Kaufering IV was first liberated by the 12th Armored Division of the US Seventh Army on April 27, 1945. Soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division didn’t arrive until April 28, 1945, but in the Band of Brothers, they are shown as being there first. The prisoners greet them and act as though they have never seen an American soldier before.
Kaufering IV was one of 11 camps, all named Kaufering and numbered I through XI; Kaufering IV had been designated as a “sick camp” where prisoners who could no longer work in the Kaufering factories were sent. But in the TV series Band of Brothers, this is not mentioned.
Dead bodies laid out at Kaufering IV, May 1, 1945
There was a typhus epidemic in Germany in 1945 and all Kaufering prisoners with typhus were sent to the Kaufering IV camp. The dead bodies in the photo above were prisoners who had died of typhus and other diseases.
Real life photo of the barracks at Kaufering IV
In Band of Brothers, the barracks at Kaufering IV have been accurately re-created, but it is not explained that the barracks were built partially underground in order to hide the camp from American planes that were bombing everything in sight. The photo above shows the real life camouflaged huts where the Kaufering IV prisoners lived.
The eleven Kaufering sub-camps had been set up specifically to build three huge underground factories for a project called Ringeltaube. In these subterranean factories, the German jet fighter plane Messerschmitt Me 262 was to be built. Allied bombing raids had made it necessary for the Nazis to build their factories underground.
In the last days of the World War II, all the Kaufering camps were evacuated except for the sick prisoners in the Kaufering IV camp. Some of the Kaufering prisoners arrived at the Dachau main camp on April 27, 1945, only two days before Dachau was liberated by American troops.
Civilians from the town of Hurlach forced to bury the bodies
In the Band of Brothers TV series, civilians from the town of Hurlach are shown burying the bodies, but what is not mentioned is that they were forced at gun-point to handle bodies of prisoners who had died of typhus. The Germans had not been vaccinated and some of them undoubtedly got typhus and died as a result. (At Bergen-Belsen, out of 80 unvaccinated German guards who were forced to handle the bodies of typhus victims, 20 died of typhus.)
In Band of Brothers, German civilians are shown, as they arrive at Kaufering IV wearing nice clothes. This is true to life; they had been ordered to wear their Sunday best for the burial of the bodies. This was the case at all the concentration camps where civilians were ordered to bury the bodies.
Then there is a scene in Band of Brothers where one of the 101st Airborne soldiers is screaming at a German shop keeper who is objecting because all of his goods are being taken by the Americans to feed the Kaufering IV prisoners. The shop keeper keeps repeating “Ich bin kein Nazi.” But the soldier is angry because the shopkeeper didn’t do anything about the Kaufering IV camp, although he must have smelled the burning bodies. Of course, the German civilians would not have been told anything about the top secret underground factories in the Kaufering camps, but this American with a Harvard background couldn’t understand that.
One of the next scenes shows 600,000 German soldiers marching in perfect formation down the center of the Autobahn after they had surrendered. The Americans knew of the legendary discipline of the German Army, so the German soldiers are completely unguarded as they march.
Meanwhile, undisciplined American soldiers are shown killing two German soldiers, who have just surrendered in good faith, and then stealing their prized Luger pistols. The 101st soldiers just shrug this off, while Harvard guy screams at the Germans soldiers who are marching by. He is angry because Germany started the war and his Harvard education had been interrupted as a result. The Germans completely ignore this verbal abuse and keep marching in step.
Band of Brothers is a true story, based on real soldiers in the 101st Airborne. It is highly accurate except for how the liberation of the Kaufering IV camp is shown. Why do movies and TV shows always have to misrepresent the concentration camps?
February 27, 2010
Famous photo of Dachau Gaskammer
Photo of Dachau Gaskammer, April 30, 1945
Gaskammer is the German word for gas chamber. This word was used by the Germans during World War II to mean a room where clothing was deloused with a poison gas called Zyklon-B; the Germans were trying to save lives by killing the lice that spreads typhus. The doors and the interior of the disinfection chambers have been repainted, but a few of the tour guides at Dachau still tell visitors that these rooms were used to kill people.
The photo above was taken by an American soldier in the Army Signal Corps, named Sidney Blau. The caption which the US Army put on this photo was as follows:
Gas chambers, conveniently located to the crematory, are examined by a soldier of the U.S. Seventh Army. These chambers were used by Nazi guards for killing prisoners of the infamous Dachau concentration camp.
Note that the caption says the gas chambers were used for “killing prisoners” without specifying that they were killing Jews. Note the plural (gas chambers) in the caption on the photo. There were four identical chambers at the south end of the Baracke X building, shown below.
South end of Baracke X building at Dachau
Three of the four doors into the rooms where clothing was disinfected
Pretend that you are Sidney Blau and you have been sent to Dachau on April 30, 1945, the day after the camp was liberated, to take photos for the Army Signal Corps. You see four doors with the word “Gaszeit” which means gas time. Each door has a skull and crossbones with the word Gas.
Outside the Baracke X building, you see clothing hung up on hangers. On one side of the building, you see huge piles of prison uniforms.
Clothing hung on hangers outside Dachau Gaskammer
Piles of prisoners' clothes near the Baracke X building
What conclusion would you have come to? Would you have concluded that these rooms were homicidal gas chambers where prisoners were killed? Would you have thought that it was stupid for the Germans to put a skull and crossbones and the word Gas on the door so that the prisoners would balk at entering the room? Would you have thought that it was cruel to make the prisoners hang their clothes neatly on a hanger before they were killed?
What about the bars on the ceiling of each Gaskammer? Would you have thought that they hung the prisoners from the bars to torture them before they were gassed?
Bars on the ceiling of Gaskammer for hanging clothes
If you were Sidney Blau, would you have noticed that there were no floor drains in the four rooms with the word Gaszeit on the door? When a person dies, all their body fluids are released; the floor would have been covered with filth after each gassing. Yet, for some reason, the floor drains were outside of each Gaskammer.
Did they deliberately avoid putting a drain in the Gaskammer so that the poison gas would not get into the sewer system and poison the whole camp?
Was Sidney Blau ordered to take this particular photo or was he just told to take photos? Did he take a photo of the shower room door after the prisoners told the Americans that the shower room was really a gas chamber? The door into the shower room, which has never been repainted, would not have been a dramatic shot, like the famous photo at the top of this page.
Door into the shower room in the Baracke X building
The Official Army Report published after the camp was liberated had these words:
“…the new crematorium was completed in May 1944, and the gas chambers, a total of five, were used for the executions and the disposals of the bodies.”
Actually, the new crematorium was completed in May 1943.
The five gas chambers, mentioned in the Official Army Report, included the shower room and the four chambers where the clothing was deloused. Did anyone stop to think about why there were four identical gas chambers and one that was totally different?
Shower room with one of the six floor drains shown in the center of the photo
The following quote is from the Report of the Atrocities Committed at Dachau Concentration Camp, signed by Col. David Chavez, Jr., JAGD, 7 May 1945 :
“The new building had a gas chamber for executions… the gas chamber was labeled “shower room” over the entrance and was a large room with airtight doors and double glassed lights, sealed and gas proof. The ceiling was studded with dummy shower heads. A small observation peephole, double glassed and hermetically sealed was used to observe the conditions of the victims. There were grates in the floor. Hydrogen cyanide was mixed in the room below, and rose into the gas chamber and out the top vents.”
“… a gas chamber?” What about the four rooms with the word Gas on the door? “… grates in the floor?” Were these dummy floor drains, like the “dummy shower heads”? “… the top vents”? How come they didn’t mention the vents on the east wall of the shower room?
Vents on east wall of Dachau shower room
Visitors to the Dachau Memorial Site are told that the poison gas was poured onto the floor of the shower room through these vents on the east wall. Zyklon-B gas comes in the form of small pellets about the size of peas.
The delousing chambers had a fancy machine that was used to input gas pellets. Why didn’t they use one of these machines in the shower room?
Device to put gas pellets into delousing rooms at Dachau
If I had been an Army photographer, assigned to take photos at Dachau on April 30, 1945, I would probably have been just as gullible as Sidney Blau. I would have believed the prisoners who came forward and led me to the gas chambers. After all, the British had been broadcasting information about the Germans gassing the Jews since June 1942.
February 24, 2010
Alfred Naujocks and the start of World War II
Who started World War II? Well duh! Germany started World War II, of course. How could anyone not know that? It was proved at Nuremberg, for Christ’s sakes.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the Nuremberg trials:
The first and best known of these trials was the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which tried 22 of the most important captured leaders of Nazi Germany. Testimony was given from November 21, 1945 to October 1, 1946.
Note the date that testimony began: November 21, 1945
One of the charges against the “major war criminals” was Crimes against Peace, a new crime that had been made up by the Allies. The most serious Crime against Peace committed by the German war criminals was the unprovoked attack on Poland on September 1, 1939.
On the day of the attack, Hitler had gone on the radio in Berlin at 8 a.m. and said, “Since 5:45 a.m., we’ve been shooting back.”
What in the hell was he talking about? Shooting back? It was the Germans who fired the first shots. Or was it? This was something that had to be cleared up before the Nuremberg trial began.
Alfred Naujocks – German traitor in World War II
On November 20, 1945, a German traitor named Alfred Naujocks signed an affidavit in which he told all about how he had helped to perpetrate a fake attack on a radio station in Gleiwitz, a town on the German border with Poland. According to Naujocks, the Germans had staged this fake attack in order to have an excuse for starting World War II.
Naujocks had turned himself in to the Allies in October 1944. He was held in prison as a potential war criminal until World War II ended; then he was released. Apparently no one thought about getting his story in writing in a sworn affidavit until just the day before testimony in the trial began. Considering that Naujocks was a traitor who defected and went over to the side of the enemy, how much is his affidavit worth? Did he even write this affidavit himself?
There were 21 similar border incidents the night before the Germans attacked Poland, according to Wikipedia. Were these incidents all faked?
The German people are famous for planning everything carefully; they leave nothing to chance. You see, the Nazis anticipated that, in case they lost the war, the Allies might make up an ex post facto law called Crimes against Peace, so they wanted to be prepared to prove that it was really Poland that had started the war by attacking a radio station the night before.
That’s why the Germans faked an attack by dressing up an inmate from a Nazi concentration camp in civilian clothes and planting his dead body outside the radio station while several Germans, dressed in Polish uniforms, went inside the station and terrorized the staff before one of them made a 3 minute speech in Polish over the radio. The concentration camp prisoner had first been given a lethal injection to make sure that he didn’t survive, and was then shot several times.
Sorry, but I don’t buy this preposterous story.
What was the dead guy’s name? Is there a record of him being registered at any of the concentration camps? The attackers were wearing Polish uniforms, so why didn’t the Germans put a Polish uniform on the dead guy? Was this just an innocent bystander who was killed by real Polish soldiers when they attacked the radio station?
Of course, Naujocks never took the witness stand at Nuremberg, so he was never cross examined by the defense. There were only 33 witnesses for the prosecution at the IMT; most of the testimony was by affidavit only, giving the defense no chance to cross examine.
The following quote is from the Nuremberg transcripts on December 20, 1945 when the Naujocks affidavit was read in court by prosecution attorney, Col. Story. Notice the date of the affidavit signed by Naujocks – November 20, 1945 – the day before testimony at the war crimes trial started.
COL. STOREY:
I now offer in evidence Document 2751-PS, which is Exhibit USA-482. It is an affidavit of Alfred Helmut Naujocks, dated November 20, 1945. This affidavit particularly refers to the actual occurrences in connection with the Polish border incident. I believe it was referred to by the Witness Lahousen when he was on the stand:
“I, Alfred Helmut Naujocks, being first duly sworn, depose and state as follows:
“1. I was a member of the SS from 1931 to 19 October 1944 and a member of the SD from its creation in 1934 to January 1941. I served as a member of the Waffen-SS from February 1941 until the middle of 1942. Later I served in the Economics Department of the Military Administration of Belgium from September 1942 to September 1944. I surrendered to the Allies on 19 October 1944.
“2. On or about 10 August 1939 the Chief of the Sipo and SD, Heydrich, personally ordered me to simulate an attack on the radio station near Gleiwitz, near the Polish border, and to make it appear that the attacking force consisted of Poles. Heydrich said: ‘Actual proof of these attacks of the Poles is needed for the foreign press, as well as for German propaganda purposes.’ I was directed to go to Gleiwitz with five or six SD men and wait there until I received a code word from Heydrich indicating that the attack should take place.
My instructions were to seize the radio station and to hold it long enough to permit a Polish-speaking German, who would be put at my disposal, to broadcast a speech in Polish. Heydrich told me that this speech should state that the time had come for the conflict between the Germans and the Poles and that the Poles should get together and strike down any Germans from whom they met resistance. Heydrich also told me at this time that he expected an attack on Poland by Germany in a few days.
“3. I went to Gleiwitz and waited there a fortnight. Then I requested permission of Heydrich to return to Berlin but was told to stay in Gleiwitz. Between the 25th and 31st of August I went to see Heinrich Muller, head of the Gestapo, who was then nearby at Oppeln. In my presence Muller discussed with a man named Mehlhorn plans for another border incident, in which it should be made to appear that Polish soldiers were attacking German troops …. Germans in the approximate strength of a company were to be used. Muller stated that he had 12 or 13 condemned criminals who were to be dressed in Polish uniforms and left dead on the ground at the scene of the incident to show that they had been killed while attacking. For this purpose they were to be given fatal injections by a doctor employed by Heydrich. Then they were also to be given gunshot wounds. After the assault members of the press and other persons were to be taken to the spot of the incident. A police report was subsequently to be prepared.
“4. Muller told me that he had an order from Heydrich to make one of those criminals available to me for the action at Gleiwitz. The code name by which he referred to these criminals was ‘Canned Goods.’
“5. The incident at Gleiwitz in which I participated was carried out on the evening preceding the German attack on Poland. As I recall, war broke out on the 1st of September 1939. At noon on the 31st of August I received by telephone from Heydrich the code word for the attack which was to take place at 8 o’clock that evening. Heydrich said, ‘In order to carry out this attack, report to Muller for “Canned Goods.”‘ I did this and gave Muller instructions to deliver the man near the radio station. I received this man and had him laid down at the entrance to the station. He was alive, but he was completely unconscious. I tried to open his eyes. I could not recognize by his eyes that he was alive, only by his breathing. I did not see the shot wounds, but a lot of blood was smeared across his face. He was in civilian clothes.
“6. We seized the radio station as ordered, broadcast a speech of 3 to 4 minutes over an emergency transmitter, fired some pistol shots, and left.”
And then “sworn to and subscribed to before Lieutenant Martin”.
—————————————-
The following quote is from the transcripts of the Nuremberg IMT on August 27, 1946 when Dr. Hans Gawlik spoke for the defense:
DR. HANS GAWLIK (Counsel for the SD):
I shall now turn to Section B: Crimes against Peace (Statement of Evidence V of the English trial brief against the Gestapo and SD).
As a crime against peace the SD is accused of having staged so-called border incidents before the outbreak of the war to give Hitler an excuse for starting the war. The Prosecution, however, referred to only one border incident in which the SD is alleged to have participated. That is the alleged attack on the Gleiwitz radio station.
In this connection the Prosecution made reference to the affidavit of Alfred Naujocks of 20 November 1945. This is Prosecution Document 2751-PS. The deponent of Document 2751-PS, Alfred Naujocks, was heard before the Commission. On that occasion he declared that the execution of the attack on the Gleiwitz radio station was not included in the aims and purposes of Aemter III and VI.
The witness further testified that no sections of Aemter III and VI were used for the execution of that border incident in Gleiwitz and that the men who with him attacked the Gleiwitz station did not belong to the SD, Amt III.
The witness also stated that by the term “SD men” in his affidavit of 20 November 1945 he did not mean the members of any definite office of the RSHA; but common usage of the term “SD men” referred to RSHA members of all offices which were subordinate to Heydrich.
The witness further stated that he was charged with the execution of the border incident at Gleiwitz, not because he belonged to Amt VI and worked there, but that exclusively personal reasons were responsible for that decision. The witness testified that on the basis of the conversation he had had with Heydrich he had gained the impression that Heydrich would have given him that assignment even if he had not been a member of Amt VI and the SS. The order for the execution of this assignment reached the witness Naujocks not through the official channels of the chiefs of Aemter III or VI. The chiefs of Aemter III and VI had no knowledge of this action.
The members of the SD, Amt III and Amt VI, had no knowledge that the attack was carried out by Naujocks, a member of Amt VI. Particularly the members of the SD-Leitabschnitt which was in charge of Gleiwitz, and the outpost of the SD, had no knowledge of this activity and could not have had, because Naujocks had been forbidden to get in touch with any members of the SD whatsoever in that territory.
The statements of this witness have been reaffirmed by the witness Somman and through Affidavit Number SD-11, deposed by Dr. Marx.
I also submitted 215 affidavits for the office of the RSHA as well as for all territories of the SD-Leitabschnitte and the SD-Abschnitte, particularly for those situated in the regions of Katowice, Danzig, and Saxony. Those affidavits testify that the members of the SD during the critical time had no knowledge of the faked border incidents or the participation of the SD in them.
February 22, 2010
The liberation of Dachau scene in Shutter Island
I’ve been reading hundreds of reviews of the movie Shutter Island, looking for one in which the reviewer understands the Dachau Massacre flashbacks, but so far, no luck.
For example, here is a quote from a review by Arron Mesh posted on the Willamette Week Online web site on Feb. 19 at 6:34 p.m.
As Leo gazed at the dead bodies piled like human waterfalls at Dachau, a woman seated behind me at the screening asked, “Is that the Holocaust?” Yes, ma’am.
No, ma’am, that’s not the Holocaust. The Holocaust, with a capital H, was the state sponsored genocide of the Jews, which took place in what is now Poland, not at Dachau. And yes, I know about the Gypsies, the homosexuals, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and all the others that the Nazis considered to be inferior, but they are not counted as part of the big H.
Political prisoners at Dachau were illegal combatants
Dachau was the equivalent of Guantanamo bay. It was a prison camp for “enemies of the state.” The majority of the prisoners at Dachau were “political prisoners” who were there because they had been captured as illegal combatants, who were fighting in violation of the Geneva convention of 1929.
Poland never surrendered in World War II, and the Polish soldiers continued to fight as illegal combatants, instead of fighting on the battlefield. It was perfectly legal, under the Geneva Convention of 1929, to send them to a concentration camp instead of a POW camp.
Polish prisoners celebrate Dachau liberation
According to the official report by the US Army, there were 31,432 survivors in the main Dachau camp, including 2,539 Jews. Some of the Jews had been brought to Dachau from ghettos in Lithuania. Others had been brought to the main Dachau camp from the sub-camps just a few weeks before the liberators arrived. Some of the Jews had arrived only the day before.
Some of the Jews at Dachau had originally been sent to Auschwitz, but had been brought back to Germany when the Auschwitz camp was abandoned. When the Americans entered Germany in March 1945, the Germans started bringing the Jews from the sub-camps to the main Dachau camp so that they could be turned over to the Allies.
Women who were brought from the sub-camps to Dachau
The dead bodies that the American soldiers saw were prisoners who had died in a typhus epidemic that started in December 1944 and accounted for half of the deaths in the 12-year history of Dachau.
The American soldiers couldn’t understand why the Dachau camp was not in pristine condition, at a time when Germany was 8 days away from surrendering, after fighting a war for 6 years. Every major city in Germany had been bombed; refugees were clogging the highways, trying to escape from the Soviet soldiers who were raping and pillaging their way across Germany. Food was scarce because all the men who normally produced the food were in the Army, including, by this time, old men and young boys.
Dachau had been bombed by American planes three weeks before, and there was no electricity nor running water in the camp. There was plenty of food though, because the transportation system had broken down and Dachau was the only camp that the Red Cross could reach. Just the day before the Americans arrived, the Red Cross had brought in 5 truck loads of food.
The Germans were doing the best they could to feed the prisoners; they were cooking over wood burning stoves and hauling drinking water into the camp.
The Germans were trying to stop the typhus epidemic — without access to vaccine and DDT which America could have sent through the Red Cross. The toilets wouldn’t flush without running water and the prisoners had not been able to take a shower for three weeks. The barracks were terribly overcrowded because around 15,000 prisoners had recently been brought in from the sub-camps.
If the American soldiers had arrived in 1938 at Dachau, they would have been astounded at how neat and clean the camp was. They would have complained about the Nazis being too hard on the prisoners, making them take their shoes off before entering the barracks and insisting that the prisoners keep everything in perfect order in their lockers. Dachau was like an Army boot camp, only worse.
The political prisoners at Dachau were there to be rehabilitated and to learn the most important Nazi virtues which were painted on the roof of the main building where all the prisoners could see them.
Cross put up by the Catholic prisoners at Dachau
The German words on the roof translate into English as follows: “There is one road to freedom. Its milestones are: Obedience, Diligence, Honesty, Orderliness, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Self-Sacrifice, and Love of the Fatherland.”
The American liberators should have looked at the uniforms of the German soldiers before taking revenge because of the conditions in the camp. Some of the German soldiers who were killed were Wehrmacht soldiers or Waffen-SS soldiers who had no responsibility for the concentration camps.
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