At two graves in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio and one grave in Fort Douglas Post Cemetery in Salt Lake City lie German prisoners of war from WWII. These graves, which have existed for decades, are marked with Nazi symbols, and in recent weeks the calls have grown louder to have them removed.
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A soldier is a soldier is a soldier, no matter what side they were on.
I've known plenty of Germans that fought for their Fatherland in WWII, and every single one of them believed they were defending their country. Just because they fought for Nazi Germany doesn't make them a Nazi. Matter of fact, I've never met one that professed to be one. Not one.
Their grave markers are no more and no less than rendering military honors. Leave them the fuck alone.
ReplyDeleteOne of the coolest guys I met in FRG was an old WW2 tanker who had fought on the Eastern front. He fought Russians and knew we were there to do the same if the need arose. He was an old Nazi, I was a young GI. We both looked forward to war with Russia.
ReplyDeleteSomething similar happened up here in Wisconsin. A cemetery with about a hundred graves of Confederate soldiers (died as POWs) had a monument for them. The remove-all-Confederate-statues thing was going on at the time, and some holier-than-thou types loudly proclaimed this memorial monument was hugely problematic and got it removed.
ReplyDeleteEven for the dead, there is no peace.
There is an actual national law, passed in the 50's, that says Confederate memorials and gravestones are treated ans US military memorials and gravestones.
DeleteBut... nobody really enforces this.
When I was a little kid a german immigrant family lived behind us. The dad had been a fighter pilot during the war and there was a picture of him in uniform and his medals were displayed on the mantle. I dont ever remember him saying anything but his mother was very negative about the US. I told my dad about her comments and likely mis attributed the comments to the dad. I was shocked and scared when my dad jumped up and said he was going to talk to the neighbor, he wasn't going to tolerate any nazi bullshit. Dad had flown 2 tours (57 missions) in a ball turret over Germany and in 1953 the wounds were still raw. I watched out the back window as my dad went to our property line and called out the neighbor. I was only about 4-5 and was scared I had started a fight but they talked for a while and then shook hands and came back in the house. Dad commented that they had likely been in some of the same battles as Mr.B had been on the western front then said "the war was hard on everyone" we should let it go.
ReplyDeleteThese men were buried beneath the flag they fought under, as they should be.
ReplyDeletesinglestack
Wirecutter On my 1st Tour in Germany I was in Frankfurt as an Air Traffic Controller. My buddy helped out a Facility painter who happened to be a Luftwaffe Ground crew member in France he was converted to Infantry and sent to the front he got captured and was sent to Idaho as a POW. When he heard i was from Montana he wanted to meet me and we all became friends. Let them rest in peace.
ReplyDeleteI've not met a Nazi in Germany but I did meet one working in a gun store in Sarasota, complete with his Waffen-SS t-shirt, 'Gott mit Uns' belt buckle and P-38. He didn't really appreciate my Krav Maga t-shirt ( in both English and Hebrew ) but his co-workers laughed their nuts off at him getting bent out of shape by someone elses t-shirt.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in South Texas a friend had a farm south of San Antonio around a little village called Losoya. Across the road from one of the pastures there were still POW camp buildings left in the late 70's where Germans were kept during WWII. I don't know all the historical details but I understood that some of those POWS stayed in Texas after the war. Texas does have a strong German culture. Look at the names of some of the towns. I just wonder if that camp in Losoya is where Germans buried at Ft. Sam came from.
ReplyDeleteThey absolutely were defending their country. We should not cow tow to those who would dishonor their graves for their own sick satisfaction. They fought with honor and even American soldiers would agree that they were the world's best fighters. Look up "Rhine meadow camps" to see just how they were treated after the war.
ReplyDeleteI looked "Rhine meadow camps" up, that's tough treatment. It's hard to lose a war.
DeleteAn acquaintance of ours was an actual Hitler Youth. I asked about her affiliation, she replied, “Of course I was Hitler Jugend, everyone was. You didn’t have a choice”
ReplyDeleteLeave the past in the past and let the dead Rest In Peace and unmolested.
I must agree with most everyone here. The war is over, if you remember the Berlin Air Lift, how America dropped food and supplies because the Soviets tried to starve Berlin out, you will know just what nation is the one that knows how to treat a defeated enemy.
ReplyDeleteIf after the civil war, we could rebuild a nation, then how can anyone justify holding a grudge against a nation that lost during the second world war? We could more easily justify hatred against the Japanese, due to their mistreatment of American POW's, and yet, we don't do that.
For those with either very long memories, or more likely, those who have studied history, before WWI, most high school students studied German as a second language in school. It wasn't until after the first world war that we stopped all the language studies in German. The German language is actually the closest related to English then any other language.
My son visited Germany as a US Navy 2nd Class Petty Ofc. a couple years ago, and he said that of all the ports of call, the Germans treated them the worst. The Norwegians treated them the best, wanting to spend time with them, and to learn about American culture, particularly about how people lived in the various parts of the country. His last tour was in the Gulf of Oman, keeping Iran under control. He had a port visit in Bahrain, and just last night, I talked to him. He said that Bahrain was a terrible country, looking like it was a thousand years behind the times.
I called to talk to him, because he got out of the Navy in December. And his wife is now pregnant with their second child. So they didn't waste any time.
pigpen51
We may have 'rebuilt' the nation after the civil war, but the hatred of everything Confederate didn't start until fairly recently. Why should the Germans be treated any different?
Delete"Just because they fought for Nazi Germany doesn't make them a Nazi."
ReplyDeleteTrue. But irrelevant. The Germans (and by extension the Nordics, and English speaking whites in general) must be punished for ever and ever. Is it surprising who signed that letter?
Besides, since all kinds of bullshit insanity is protected by force of law these days ("It's MA'AM!"), I'm going to claim that all those men were Buddhists. The swastika is a sacred Buddhist symbol. (This is no shit.) If the Christians can have a cross on their gravemarkers, and the Jews can have a Star of David, then by G-d the Buddhists can have their symbol.
I am calling out Ms Wasserman Schultz, Ms Lowey, Mr Carter, and Ms Granger on their historical ignorance and their obvious hatred for Buddhists. How dare they not respect one of the world's great religions. How dare they pretend to be unaware of the sacred symbols of other cultures? Clearly Wasserman Schultz, Lowey, Carter, and Granger are racists and haters. They should be ashamed of themselves.
These soldiers were interred long ago, honored by the same people (at least, the same generation) against whom they'd fought. Odd that their contemporary 'enemies' had more respect for them than virtue-signalling politicians and snivelling snowflakes of today, not one of whom had anything to do with that conflict. LET THE DEAD REST.
ReplyDeleteMaxwell is right, leave the buried soldiers alone. I was in England in 2010 and attended a remembrance ceremony in the Holy Cross Church cemetery in the village of Scopwick in Lincolnshire. We honored the fallen and among them were a number of German aircrew whose graves were honored as well, there, with a gravestone no bigger than the rest were the remains of Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee. John was an American who was born in China whose father was American and his mother was British who joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and died in a tragic mid air collision, he was only 19. John will go on unknown to himself as the embodiment of all of us who have slipped the surley bonds of earth as I have heard his beautiful words read many many times as I have buried my friends. His haunting words.
ReplyDeleteHigh Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
Every last one of those SJW and do-gooders wanting to change history NEVER SERVED THEIR OWN COUNTRY! And never did, nor ever will possess the intestinal fortitude to do so. Each one has never done anything for others unless they are ensured they will have a benefit in return. Those of them who attend church, do so because they feel that will assure entrance to Heaven, such they can be assholes the rest of the week. Each and every one a spineless, backstabbing, self absorbed piece of shit.
ReplyDeleteMy first wife was a German. Her grandfather was in the SS and got wounded in the war when a grenade exploded next to him and 2 of his buddies. The war was over for all 3 of them after that. Only he got to go home, and the other two got buried somewhere on the Eastern Front. That's all he would ever talk about the war. I asked him about how he wound up in the SS. His explanation was that they were automatically putting anyone who was 6' tall or taller into the SS. Turned out to be bullshit. He was a nazi to the bone. On his deathbed, he actually changed his voter registration to the National Socialist Partie and paid $10,000 D Marks to be baptised back into the Catholic Church. Guess he was covering all bases. After he died, my father-in-law found a whole bunch of nazi stuff hidden in the attic of his house. That stuff would have sold for a small fortune to collectors in the US, but it was all outlawed in Germany, so he was in quite a quandry as to how to get rid of it. I think he wound up burning it all at night.
ReplyDeleteI also used to drink with a bunch of old men at a gasthaus outside the main gate of Lee Barracks in Mainz, where no GI's ever seemed to want to go. Those bastards were all old unrepentant nazis, but we were all soldiers and they were paying for the beer and the snacks. I never bought into that nazi bullshit, but the one thing I do believe my ex's grandfather about was that, at the time, the only choice folks had was between Hitler and the communists. They could see what Stalin was doing to the Soviet Union, and wanted no part of that. So they voted Hitler in.