Throughout history, a major challenge for any advancing army is how it cares for captured enemy combatants. For Hitler and Stalin, the issue was simplified - both men had little regard for human life, particularly when fighting each other. The European theatre of World War II can be described as two killing machines killing each other, particularly on the Eastern front when Nazi forces clashed with the Red Army. On the Western front, however, American soldiers tended to treat the conquered with respect and dignity. Although instances of brutality did occur, they were, for the most part, isolated and did not represent the conduct of the typical American GI. Again, individual soldiers like Ken were there to witness the unraveling of the Nazi regime:
"There was one occasion in particular when we came into Weisenfeld, which was quite a large town. We came into that town in the late afternoon or early evening, and at the city hall there were all these civilians bringing in their rifles and throwing them down; they were giving up. Well, unbeknownst to us, there was an SS school on the opposite side of town. That night they reorganized and put one SS man in civilian clothing in a house, with a rifle. He was ordered to shoot at us. The next morning the town came alive again; the battle started all over again. The Germans regrouped and reorganized, so we had to re-take the whole town all over again. That's when it got hairy.
"Then, a bit later on I had lunch with some 200 or 300 Germans. They had surrendered and I was watching them. The whole group was there, sitting on a sidewalk together. For lunch they had bread, like hardtack, which was actually pretty darn good. Then they each had a toothpaste tube that was full of some sort of cheese spread; that was their lunch. They actually shared it with me, so I ate with them. These were German soldiers that had given up, and we shared lunch right there, right next to the SS school. Well, it wasn't too much longer after that we found out that they had another embankment that was out of town, all dug in; it was made out of caves. That was one more thing that we had to take before we could move on. Oh yeah, that was fun."
As I sat with Ken and his wife, Thora, I tried to imagine the scenario that had just been described to me. Imagine, two groups of people sitting and having lunch together, who only hours or minutes before had been firing at each other, trying to take lives. I asked Ken, what was the German attitude toward you? Were they helpful? Did they give misinformation?
Ken laughed:
"Oh, not at all. They were happy. They all sat down like a bunch of chickens, all sitting around waiting to see what we were going to do with them next. You get two-to-three hundred in a group, that's quite a bit. But, I suppose they were just ready to give up. A lot of them had heard how good it was, that if they gave up or surrendered (to us) they'd be taken care of. They wouldn't be shot. I'll say one thing; they were all pretty darn good soldiers. And, they were civil."
Folks, everything that I have read about World War II indicates that, except for a few isolated instances, there was a mutual respect between the American and German soldiers. Had Ken been fighting for the Russians, or the Japanese, these soldiers that surrendered almost certainly would have been executed and forgotten about. Ken described more:
"We were also in on the liberation of Versailles. This happened by accident; we were way ahead of the lines and wound up on a three-corner street intersection, with Versailles on our left. We no more than stopped, trying to get our bearings, trying to read maps, when the French just seemed to come out of the woodwork. My gosh, there must have been a thousand people there, in just a few minutes' time. This was in Versailles, just outside Paris. The Germans, all of a sudden, opened up on us. I'll bet you that in five seconds, all those people disappeared like rats. Well, we took off, too, down the streets of Versailles. We were just nosing around when all of a sudden there were three French, waving their rifles at us with a white surrender flag. They had some German prisoners that they were rounding up from houses. I think it was about 11 in the morning when we first came into Versailles, and this kept on all day until five or six in the evening; they just kept throwing these prisoners into our lines. We had a march that looked like it was about a MILE LONG. All we had to control this group was one guy with a .30-caliber machine gun and an officer with a pistol, that's all. Well, it got to be about 6, time to think about bedding down for night, but what were we going to do with these people? We finally ran across a company that was setting up for the night in the middle of some park. So we said, 'You gotta take care of these people - you got them.' and we took off and that was that. It's funny what you see happening in a situation like that."
Unfortunately, not all instances of surrender were civil, or disciplined. Ken went on to describe his unit's accidental liberation of a Nazi concentration camp.
Tune in next week.
- Dan Wegmueller of Monroe writes a weekly column for Friday editions of the Times. He can be reached at dwegs@tds.net.
"There was one occasion in particular when we came into Weisenfeld, which was quite a large town. We came into that town in the late afternoon or early evening, and at the city hall there were all these civilians bringing in their rifles and throwing them down; they were giving up. Well, unbeknownst to us, there was an SS school on the opposite side of town. That night they reorganized and put one SS man in civilian clothing in a house, with a rifle. He was ordered to shoot at us. The next morning the town came alive again; the battle started all over again. The Germans regrouped and reorganized, so we had to re-take the whole town all over again. That's when it got hairy.
"Then, a bit later on I had lunch with some 200 or 300 Germans. They had surrendered and I was watching them. The whole group was there, sitting on a sidewalk together. For lunch they had bread, like hardtack, which was actually pretty darn good. Then they each had a toothpaste tube that was full of some sort of cheese spread; that was their lunch. They actually shared it with me, so I ate with them. These were German soldiers that had given up, and we shared lunch right there, right next to the SS school. Well, it wasn't too much longer after that we found out that they had another embankment that was out of town, all dug in; it was made out of caves. That was one more thing that we had to take before we could move on. Oh yeah, that was fun."
As I sat with Ken and his wife, Thora, I tried to imagine the scenario that had just been described to me. Imagine, two groups of people sitting and having lunch together, who only hours or minutes before had been firing at each other, trying to take lives. I asked Ken, what was the German attitude toward you? Were they helpful? Did they give misinformation?
Ken laughed:
"Oh, not at all. They were happy. They all sat down like a bunch of chickens, all sitting around waiting to see what we were going to do with them next. You get two-to-three hundred in a group, that's quite a bit. But, I suppose they were just ready to give up. A lot of them had heard how good it was, that if they gave up or surrendered (to us) they'd be taken care of. They wouldn't be shot. I'll say one thing; they were all pretty darn good soldiers. And, they were civil."
Folks, everything that I have read about World War II indicates that, except for a few isolated instances, there was a mutual respect between the American and German soldiers. Had Ken been fighting for the Russians, or the Japanese, these soldiers that surrendered almost certainly would have been executed and forgotten about. Ken described more:
"We were also in on the liberation of Versailles. This happened by accident; we were way ahead of the lines and wound up on a three-corner street intersection, with Versailles on our left. We no more than stopped, trying to get our bearings, trying to read maps, when the French just seemed to come out of the woodwork. My gosh, there must have been a thousand people there, in just a few minutes' time. This was in Versailles, just outside Paris. The Germans, all of a sudden, opened up on us. I'll bet you that in five seconds, all those people disappeared like rats. Well, we took off, too, down the streets of Versailles. We were just nosing around when all of a sudden there were three French, waving their rifles at us with a white surrender flag. They had some German prisoners that they were rounding up from houses. I think it was about 11 in the morning when we first came into Versailles, and this kept on all day until five or six in the evening; they just kept throwing these prisoners into our lines. We had a march that looked like it was about a MILE LONG. All we had to control this group was one guy with a .30-caliber machine gun and an officer with a pistol, that's all. Well, it got to be about 6, time to think about bedding down for night, but what were we going to do with these people? We finally ran across a company that was setting up for the night in the middle of some park. So we said, 'You gotta take care of these people - you got them.' and we took off and that was that. It's funny what you see happening in a situation like that."
Unfortunately, not all instances of surrender were civil, or disciplined. Ken went on to describe his unit's accidental liberation of a Nazi concentration camp.
Tune in next week.
- Dan Wegmueller of Monroe writes a weekly column for Friday editions of the Times. He can be reached at dwegs@tds.net.
