[Marxism] Honoring German POWs ... and some comparisons

[Brian Shannon <Brian_Shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"German POWs were treated very well," said Arnold Krammer, a Texas A&M
history professor who has written several books on German POWs. "In
some cases they were given wine and beer with every meal. Of course,
prison is still prison. They were bored and unhappy."

But thousands returned to Germany fluent in English and "having a new
love and respect for the United States," Krammer said. Many climbed
into the hierarchy of the postwar government, while others became
business executives, writers and artists, he said.

U.S. farmers paid the government for the POWs' work and the government
then paid the POWs.

"Each prisoner could take back several hundred dollars or more, which
helped lubricate the German economy," Krammer said. "It was one of
those programs that just worked out well for everybody."
. . .

"The minimum you can do is honor these soldiers who sacrificed," said
Lt. Col. Herbert R. Sladek, a member of Fort Benning's German Army
liaison team, which hosts "Volkstrauertag" -- Germany's day of
mourning.

"They were educated in another time period, with another political
guideline. In their opinion, they also fought for freedom, liberty and
for their fatherland. That's why these people gave all they had --
their own lives."

The camps are an all-but-forgotten part of history, but the prisoners
did leave some remnants behind in southern Georgia and throughout the
country. Some of them went on to become leaders of postwar Germany.

During World War II, the United States, which had little previous
experience with foreign POWs, hastily threw up 700 internment camps to
detain 425,000 enemy soldiers, who were arriving sometimes at a rate of
30,000 a month.

The German internees are still remembered for their skills and hard
work. With most of America's young men overseas, the POWs helped
overcome a labor shortage by harvesting crops and doing other physical
labor for 80 cents a day.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/15/german.pow.graves.ap/index.html
_____________

The most apparent comparison is to the treatment of Japanese Americans
in our "concentration campus", called "relocation camps" by the
euphemistically able.

But their treatment should also be compared to the indefinite holding
of Middle Eastern "enemy combatants" kept in cages in Guantanamo who
are not Prisoners of War eligible to return home at a time certain, but
who are involuntary "men without a country." Although Guantanamo does
not compare in degree to the theft of the land from the native
Americans, the theft of souls from Africa, or the holocausts of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it earns a dishonored place alongside them.

And it is happening on the watch of U.S. citizens who probably can't
imagine how the Germans passively and actively supported fascism.

from Brian Shannon


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