Army to honor soldiers enslaved by Nazis

[RamboLiberal]

Source: CNN

The U.S. Army says it will honor the "heroism and sacrifice" of 350 U.S. soldiers who were held as slaves by Nazi Germany during World War II.

The decision by the Army effectively reverses decades of silence about what the soldiers endured in the final months of the war in 1945 at Berga an der Elster, a subcamp of Buchenwald where soldiers were beaten, starved, killed and forced to work in tunnels to hide German equipment.

More than 100 U.S. soldiers died in the camp or on a forced death march. Before they were sent back to the United States, survivors signed a secrecy document with the U.S. government to never speak about their captivity.

"The interests of American prisoners of war in the event of future wars, moreover, demand that the secrets of this war be vigorously safeguarded," the document says.

CNN last month reported the story of Anthony Acevedo, who was a 20-year-old medic when he was sent to Berga with the other soldiers. Acevedo kept a diary that details the day-to-day events inside the camp and lists names and prisoner numbers of men as they died or were executed.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/23/slave.camp.honor/index.html

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About time. What the hell was the army trying to cover up?

[SpiralHawk]

1. "The Spirit of Grandpa Bush will be smirking. Smirk." - Commander AWOL Bush (R)

"And I will be smirking, too, for our Bush Family Fortune was so magnificently enhanced when we supported Hitler and the Nazis by serving as bankers to the Third Reich. Choke on that this Christmas, you lib-rul do-gooders. Smirk."

- Commander AWOL Bush (R)

BUSH-NAZI LINK CONFIRMED

Documents in National Archives Prove George W. Bush's
Grandfather Traded with Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor
http://www.geocities.com/bushfamilynazis/

[RedCloud]

4. And Jewish slave labor at Auschwitz.

I think it was the Silesian Steel company.

http://www.timeenoughforlove.org/saved/ClamorMagazineHeirToTheHolocaust3.htm

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. They were trying to prevent the kind of outrage that would

have demanded heads on pikes.

We were very magnanimous with Germany overall after the war

[Rebubula]

3. reasoning

I do understand the reasons for trying to cover up (for the good of peace) some things.

However, it must have been painful to keep quiet about something that was such a big part of your life.

No matter the trials that I endure, someone else has always had it worse.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. That is correct... and soldiers endure at times quite a bit of pain

there are things that they cannot even tell their loved ones.

And that is in any and every war

[happyslug]

6. The US and Britain had plans for a War with Russia at the end of WWII

That plan included re-arming the German Army, for without it the Soviets would have won. Given that plan any attack on the German Army and its treatment of POWs was verboten, any and all problems had to be the fault of the Nazis NOT the German Army. Thus anything that showed the German Army fully and completely obeyed the Nazis had to be suppressed less the US population prefer a Soviet Victory then the re-arming of the German Army. Fortunately Stalin had lost 40-60 million people and that was even to much for him to justify another war with even higher losses of life. A second factor was the balance of Power was not equal, the Soviet Union had the largest and most powerful Army, the Western Allies was more mechanized and had vastly more planes. The Soviet Union had secure supply lines, The Western Allies had supply problems, both the Italian and French Communists were fully ready willing and able to interfere with western Supply lines (and enough German were as sympathetic to the Soviet Union as they were to the Allies so another area of problems for the Allies).

Britain was safe, the Soviet Union had no fleet, not even the U-boats of the Germans, but the Soviet Union could supply Japan with fuel for its fleet and planes to fight off any US Attack, changing the dynamics of the war in the Pacific. Mao Tse Tung could be made to attack the Nationalist Chinese as Japan pulled back to Japan, making China Communists in 1945 instead of 1949 (along with Korea). This would bring the Philippines within Soviet Air Cover, strengthening the remaining Japanese forces in the Philippines which did not Surrender till Japan Surrender in August. The Soviet Union had three Divisions in IRan, facing three British Brigades (Generally Three Brigades to a Division, but the Division would have supply elements, engineering elements and Artillery, which the three Brigades as independent Brigades would NOT have, making it an easy Soviet Victory).

Notice, The Soviet power could be undone, but at tremendous cost, one of which was re-arming the German Army. The price would have been high, in money, troops and how we treated the German Army for its crime incurred during WWII. The Soviet Union would have had some initial quick victories, for example forcing the US to give up its plans to invade Japan and losing China to the Communists (and Britain giving up Iran and Iraq and maybe the rest of the Middle East) but the main front would have been Europe where US air superiority would have stopped any Soviet Advance past the Elbe River and pave the way for a Western Allied Offensive in 1946 (The US Supply system was to tight to do any offensive actions in 1945 in Europe, the US even had about 2000 German POW starve to Death while bring held in POW camps in Germany in the Winter of 1945-1946 do to the lack of supplies, that is how tight the supply system was for the Western Allies as late as 1946). Come 1946 or 1947 the situation would have changed, the Supply system would have been strengthened Fuel and Food from the US would have been coming at full speed by that time, and the German and French Armies would have been ready to join in on any attack on the Soviet Forces in Germany and Poland (and beyond). Notice the need for German Forces to fight the Soviet Union, and thus the need to keep all propaganda anti-Nazi instead of anti-German, the US may have had to use the German Army and anything that came out bad about the German Army as to their treatment of prisoners or other people had to be suppressed.

[Rudyabdul]

7. It's About Time...

There were African Americans that were captured and forced to work in concentration camps and some were killed on the spot. They were treated worse than Jews and none of them received reparations for their suffering.