"Vengeance at Dachau" (U.S. Soldiers nearly massacred concentration camp guards)

[Rising_Sun]

@HOS_Bandit

My comments weren’t directed at you RisingSun. I missplaced my reply somehow. I was commenting on something that Krad42 had said. I am no neo-nazi troll wearing the guise of an patriotic American. I didn’t realize at the time how old the thread was, and was only responding to Krad42’s use of “NOT” at the end of his sentence where he talked about soldiers and combat stress, and such. My intention wasn’t to kick up a shit storm, I also said in my post that I didn’t condone the summary execution of those SS soldiers. I rarely come into the forum because of situations like this. My signature is Za Dom Spremni, yes. For the homeland, i am ready. But it is my way of honoring my Fathers Uncles and Cousins who fought and died for Croatia in WW2. Were they on the wrong side, so to speak? Yes, I suppose they were. But that could be said for alot of members here. It doesn’t make me a neo-nazi troll, as you put it. And HOS has connatations that have nothing to do with 1990 Yugoslavia. And as far as my quoting this Capt. Prahl, who has apparently been outed as a fraud and a liar, weather he was or not, a couple of his posts had nuggets of info I felt were worth quoting. My doing so in no way should have been constued as any kind of an endorsement of the guy. In ending I just want to say once again, that my post wasn’t directed at you, and I apologise for inadvertantly placing it in the wrong place. And now, after hopefully explaining enough too get my name removed from the sinister troll list, I bid you all adieu for another six months or so.

Fair enough.

Apology accepted.

[Nickdfresh]

BUMP! Pertinent to several discussions in the Photo side…

[Boutte]

@Cpt_Prahl

I have to say something here in December of 1944 when my Grandfathers regiment came to the relief of the 2nd and 99th Divisons in the norther sholder of the bulge, they first hand saw the work of the 1SS this was in several towns the dead bodies of Civilians and American Airborne shot by the SS they Saw first hand the dead in Malmedy and Butebach and a few other small villages, after this it was open season on the SS, no mercy, no prisoners taken unless orderd so by HQ, if you cant understand the reality of being a front line soldier in war they you shouldn’t be so fast to make judgement on what is right or wrong because under those circomstances in the field when there is no government, just Military order, people are dying all around you and you don’t really want to be there fighting and you just want to get the damn war over with, you do horrible and somtimes in the eyes of the civilian world “wrong” Things to bring it all to an end.

On the other hand when you are the hand of justice in this chaotic world you on the spot decide the hand of Justice in a swift and short manner as there is little time and sometimes no way to get prisoners back to HQ, also to impress upon your enemy their fate, if you keep on using dirty tactics and methods to force the civilian poulation to do you will. As the SS did in WW II, you either did as you were told or you werte shot on the spot. So sometimes the return happens back its called Justice in many peoples eyes.

This was the way of the SS so any fool who thinks that by reading a book or 2 on the subject has the experience and knowledge to make such assumptions and judgements, first put yourself in the shoes of the SS and then of the Allies would you treat an enemy with kindness fairness and leagaees when they didnt at all? or just shoot them on the spot to prove a point?

I know for a fact that My Grandfather and his troops actions in WW II would in todays terms be deemed conduct unbecoming and probably be court marshalled and put in prison but those were very different times than today and hopefully because we have places like this to express our freedom of speach and debate we will never repete those mistakes again.

I’ll site a story told to me by a certain sargent from the regiment on this subject during an interview with him and his squad in 2005.

“see we had just come upon a fixed position manned by some hitler youth and an SS Officer we gave them the chance to surrender first before firing a shot they didn’t take the offer so after the little bastards fired every round fired every panzer fasust and grenade they came out of the the position yelling Nicht Shootzen kameraten nicht shootzen” I looked at the Lt and asked what do we do? He didnt say a word he just gave the slash across the throat and we killed every single one of them on the spot."

right or wrong this is what they did, I would have too under the circomestances do you want a bunch of fanatics runnning around germany after the end of the war? people who were so obviously so brainwashed that given the chance to surrender when completley outnumbered they would blindly follow the orders given to them when anyone in their right mind would surrender? or that they would fire all of their ammo and then surrender?

also rember that Pattons standing orders were that “any German caught doing an act of agression and then surrendering was to be shot on the spot” IE the mentality being if your going to surrender do it before not after doing a deed of agression…

Sure the slaughter of prisoners is a very bad thing but think of who they were killing were they honorable soldiers? who treated the civilian populations of the countries they occupied with decency and respect? NO they were arrogant monsters who treated them as slaves subserviants and this in my eyes and many many soldiers eyes is reason enough to justify the means.

remember it only takes one bad apple to ruin the bunch and as we are a sum of an whole not the sum of the Idividual in this world. hence why even today we make the same bad assumptions on a broad level.

Best post in the whole thread.

[leccy]

Originally Posted by Cpt_Prahl
I’ll site a story told to me by a certain sargent from the regiment on this subject during an interview with him and his squad in 2005.

“see we had just come upon a fixed position manned by some hitler youth and an SS Officer we gave them the chance to surrender first before firing a shot they didn’t take the offer so after the little bastards fired every round fired every panzer fasust and grenade they came out of the the position yelling Nicht Shootzen kameraten nicht shootzen” I looked at the Lt and asked what do we do? He didnt say a word he just gave the slash across the throat and we killed every single one of them on the spot."

right or wrong this is what they did, I would have too under the circomestances do you want a bunch of fanatics runnning around germany after the end of the war? people who were so obviously so brainwashed that given the chance to surrender when completley outnumbered they would blindly follow the orders given to them when anyone in their right mind would surrender? or that they would fire all of their ammo and then surrender?

also rember that Pattons standing orders were that “any German caught doing an act of agression and then surrendering was to be shot on the spot” IE the mentality being if your going to surrender do it before not after doing a deed of agression…

I have severe problems with this part of the quote.

By this reckoning the US defenders of Bastogne could have been shot if they finally surrendered, after all they were offered the chance and never took it despite being outnumbered.

If you were in a good defensive position would you surrender, if you held out for as long as you could (munitions expended), then with no chance of escape or resupply you surrendered . You would be happy to be shot because you could have surrendered before fighting.

Pattons quote is difficult to support as the whole of WW2 was aggression. When the Germans invaded Poland the shooting war started, it never stopped until 1945 in Europe so any German taken prisoner before VE Day was to be shot on the spot.

[Rising_Sun]

@Cpt_Prahl

I’ll site a story told to me by a certain sargent from the regiment on this subject during an interview with him and his squad in 2005.

“see we had just come upon a fixed position manned by some hitler youth and an SS Officer we gave them the chance to surrender first before firing a shot they didn’t take the offer so after the little bastards fired every round fired every panzer fasust and grenade they came out of the the position yelling Nicht Shootzen kameraten nicht shootzen” I looked at the Lt and asked what do we do? He didnt say a word he just gave the slash across the throat and we killed every single one of them on the spot."

right or wrong this is what they did, I would have too under the circomestances do you want a bunch of fanatics runnning around germany after the end of the war? people who were so obviously so brainwashed that given the chance to surrender when completley outnumbered they would blindly follow the orders given to them when anyone in their right mind would surrender? or that they would fire all of their ammo and then surrender?

also rember that Pattons standing orders were that “any German caught doing an act of agression and then surrendering was to be shot on the spot” IE the mentality being if your going to surrender do it before not after doing a deed of agression…

I think I missed these points the last time around (I haven’t trawled back through every post).

1. I don’t think that ‘schootzen’ is German for ‘shooting’, although perhaps it could sound like that to non-Germans. Perhaps FTG could comment.

2. If murdering soldiers who surrender after fighting to their limit is a commendable or at least permissible action by the victor, Cpt Prahl must be terminally dismayed by the vastly magnamimous leniency showed to the surrendering Americans and Filipinos on the Bataan Death March where most survived instead of all being murdered where they surrendered after fighting to their limit, and by the Japanese allowing those captured in Singapore to work on the Burma Railway and sending some of the survivors to Japan to work in the coalmines etc instead of wiping them all out where they stood after the surrender.

3. What some people, like me, think of as the commendably pugnacious ‘never say die’ attitude of the likes of Chesty Puller is, according to Cpt Prahl, obviously the murder-deserving attitude of brainwashed fanatics who should be exterminated if they dare to fight to their limit before surrendering. These deplorably fanatically brainwashed attitudes are exemplified by quotes such as these, or along the lines of, attributed to Chesty Puller:
   “We’ve been looking for the enemy for some time now. We’ve finally found him. We’re surrounded. That simplifies the problem of killing these people.”
   “We have enemy in front of us; behind us; to our left; and to our right. The bastards won’t get away this time!”

It can be a fine line between accepting a surrender at section or platoon level and finishing off a determined but exhausted opponent in the heat of the moment, and it all depends upon the circumstances, but murdering soldiers just because they have fought to their limit before surrendering is not condoned by the laws of war or basic principles of humanity.

[Nickdfresh]

Originally Posted by Cpt_Prahl
…

also rember that Pattons standing orders were that “any German caught doing an act of agression and then surrendering was to be shot on the spot” IE the mentality being if your going to surrender do it before not after doing a deed of agression…

Cpt. Prahl is long gone, but I don’t recall Patton saying anything like this and he is obviously paraphrasing in his then tyical omniscient voice…

[Evillittlekenny]

@Rising_Sun

1. I don’t think that ‘schootzen’ is German for ‘shooting’, although perhaps it could sound like that to non-Germans. Perhaps FTG could comment.

I will be faster than FTG

“schootzen” indeed does not come really close to the German word for shooting, it is “schießen/schiessen”. However “Schützen” (the closest English transcription I can think of is indeed something like schootzen) is either “to protect” or the plural of rifleman (riflemen).

[Nickdfresh]

The following was from a speech by Gen. Patton, but it should be noted that he was quoted (and perhaps paraphrased) by officers present and not by stenographer. From his Wiki page:

When we land against the enemy, don’t forget to hit him and hit him hard. When we meet the enemy we will kill him. We will show him no mercy. He has killed thousands of your comrades and he must die. If you company officers in leading your men against the enemy find him shooting at you and when you get within two hundred yards of him he wishes to surrender – oh no! That bastard will die! You will kill him. Stick him between the third and fourth ribs. You will tell your men that. They must have the killer instinct. Tell them to stick him. Stick him in the liver. We will get the name of killers and killers are immortal. When word reaches him that he is being faced by a killer battalion he will fight less. We must build up that name as killers.

— George S. Patton[26]

Patton, known for florid exaggerations and superfluousness, was clearly talking about killing within the context of combat, the heat-of-the-moment and not accepting surrenders during the fight (something which often happened anyways, as adrenaline filled soldiers often continue to fire on those that might be attempting to quit during the battle). He clearly isn’t talking about summary execution of disarmed combatants under guard…

[forager]

Combat is not nearly as clear cut and definitve as some insist on viewing it.
Best appreciated through actual experience.
The Cambodian irregulars I worked with killed any Viet who even attempted to give up.
We could not interfere.

My dad, 506th PIR, took part in liberating some camps.
He wrote that they took no SS prisoners after that.
War was soon over, but he had a dim view of Germans the rest of his life.

[Boutte]

If you haven’t been in a war, been shot at, spent month or years living like an animal, watched your friends die brutal deaths and grown accustomed to violence, brutality and bloodshed, then you’re probably not qualified to judge what these men did.

[flyerhell]

@forager

My dad, 506th PIR, took part in liberating some camps.
He wrote that they took no SS prisoners after that.
War was soon over, but he had a dim view of Germans the rest of his life.

My great uncle who also liberated camps told of a similar story - after seeing what the Germans did, Patton made some kind of speech telling the soldiers to take no prisoners. I wasn’t sure how much credit to give to this story - I heard it more than 60 years after it happened and my great uncle’s mind wasn’t so great at the time…until I saw the exact same story in this book: http://books.google.com/books?id=ir2Z_oK5Ui4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=gi+jews&hl=en&sa=X&ei=n6EwT-G0Cqf20gGNuc3iBw&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=take a prisoner&f=false (check out page 229).

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the Dachau issue…It’s very important to keep the context and mindset of the soldiers in mind when discussing things like this. These are guys who were in continuous combat for almost a full year by this point. They’ve seen and been through horrible things and they were probably still very angry over things like the Malmedy massacre. It wasn’t a planned or calculated act - from my understanding, it was done by a minority of soldiers. By this point, human life probably meant little to them and seeing Dachau was probably the final “breaking point” for those soldiers.