Martin Brech
In October 1944, at age eighteen, I was drafted into
the U.S. army. Largely because of the „Battle of the Bulge,“ my training was
cut short, my furlough was halved, and I was sent overseas immediately. Upon
arrival in Le Havre, France, we were quickly loaded into box cars and shipped
to the front. When we got there, I was suffering increasingly severe symptoms
of mononucleosis, and was sent to a hospital in Belgium. Since mononucleosis
was then known as the „kissing disease,“ I mailed a letter of thanks to my
girlfriend.
By the time I
left the hospital, the outfit I had trained with in Spartanburg, South
Carolina, was deep inside Germany, so, despite my protests, I was placed in a „repo
depot“ (replacement depot). I lost interest in the units to which I was
assigned, and don’t recall all of them: non-combat units were ridiculed at that
time. My separation qualification record states I was mostly with Company C,
14th Infantry Regiment, during my seventeen-month stay in Germany, but I
remember being transferred to other outfits also.
In late March
or early April 1945, I was sent to guard a POW camp near Andernach along the
Rhine. I had four years of high school German, so I was able to talk to the
prisoners, although this was forbidden. Gradually, however, I was used as an
interpreter and asked to ferret out members of the S.S. (I found none.)
In Andernach
about 50,000 prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by
barbed wire. The women were kept in a separate enclosure that I did not see
until later. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets. Many had no
coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for
excrement. It was a cold, wet spring, and their misery from exposure alone was
evident.
Even more
shocking was to see the prisoners throwing grass and weeds into a tin can
containing a thin soup. They told me they did this to help ease their hunger
pains. Quickly they grew emaciated. Dysentery raged, and soon they were
sleeping in their own excrement, too weak and crowded to reach the slit
trenches. Many were begging for food, sickening and dying before our eyes. We
had ample food and supplies, but did nothing to help them, including no medical
assistance.
Outraged, I
protested to my officers and was met with hostility or bland indifference. When
pressed, they explained they were under strict orders from „higher up.“ No
officer would dare do this to 50,000 men if he felt that it was „out of line,“
leaving him open to charges. Realizing my protests were useless, I asked a
friend working in the kitchen if he could slip me some extra food for the
prisoners. He too said they were under strict orders to severely ration the
prisoners’ food, and that these orders came from „higher up.“ But he said they
had more food than they knew what to do with, and would sneak me some.
When I threw
this food over the barbed wire to the prisoners, I was caught and threatened
with imprisonment. I repeated the „offense,“ and one officer angrily threatened
to shoot me. I assumed this was a bluff until I encountered a captain on a hill
above the Rhine shooting down at a group of German civilian women with his .45
caliber pistol. When I asked, „Why?,“ he mumbled, „Target practice,“ and fired
until his pistol was empty. I saw the women running for cover, but, at that
distance, couldn’t tell if any had been hit.
This is when I
realized I was dealing with cold-blooded killers filled with moralistic hatred.
They considered the Germans subhuman and worthy of extermination; another
expression of the downward spiral of racism. Articles in the G.I. newspaper, Stars
and Stripes, played up the German concentration camps, complete with photos
of emaciated bodies. This amplified our self-righteous cruelty, and made it
easier to imitate behavior we were supposed to oppose. Also, I think, soldiers
not exposed to combat were trying to prove how tough they were by taking it out
on the prisoners and civilians.
These
prisoners, I found out, were mostly farmers and workingmen, as simple and
ignorant as many of our own troops. As time went on, more of them lapsed into a
zombie-like state of listlessness, while others tried to escape in a demented
or suicidal fashion, running through open fields in broad daylight towards the
Rhine to quench their thirst. They were mowed down.
Some prisoners
were as eager for cigarettes as for food, saying they took the edge off their hunger.
Accordingly, enterprising G.I. „Yankee traders“ were acquiring hordes of
watches and rings in exchange for handfuls of cigarettes or less. When I began
throwing cartons of cigarettes to the prisoners to ruin this trade, I was
threatened by rank-and-file G.I.s too.
The only bright
spot in this gloomy picture came one night when. I was put on the „graveyard
shift,“ from two to four a.m. Actually, there was a graveyard on the uphill
side of this enclosure, not many yards away. My superiors had forgotten to give
me a flashlight and I hadn’t bothered to ask for one, disgusted as I was with
the whole situation by that time. It was a fairly bright night and I soon
became aware of a prisoner crawling under the wires towards the graveyard. We
were supposed to shoot escapees on sight, so I started to get up from the
ground to warn him to get back. Suddenly I noticed another prisoner crawling
from the graveyard back to the enclosure. They were risking their lives to get
to the graveyard for something. I had to investigate.
When I entered
the gloom of this shrubby, tree-shaded cemetery, I felt completely vulnerable,
but somehow curiosity kept me moving. Despite my caution, I tripped over the
legs of someone in a prone position. Whipping my rifle around while stumbling
and trying to regain composure of mind and body, I soon was relieved I hadn’t
reflexively fired. The figure sat up. Gradually, I could see the beautiful but
terror-stricken face of a woman with a picnic basket nearby. German civilians
were not allowed to feed, nor even come near the prisoners, so I quickly
assured her I approved of what she was doing, not to be afraid, and that I
would leave the graveyard to get out of the way.
I did so
immediately and sat down, leaning against a tree at the edge of the cemetery to
be inconspicuous and not frighten the prisoners. I imagined then, and still do
now, what it would be like to meet a beautiful woman with a picnic basket under
those conditions as a prisoner. I have never forgotten her face.
Eventually,
more prisoners crawled back to the enclosure. I saw they were dragging food to
their comrades, and could only admire their courage and devotion.
On May 8, V.E.
Day [1945], I decided to celebrate with some prisoners I was guarding who were
baking bread the other prisoners occasionally received. This group had all the
bread they could eat, and shared the jovial mood generated by the end of the
war. We all thought we were going home soon, a pathetic hope on their part. We
were in what was to become the French zone [of occupation], where I soon would
witness the brutality of the French soldiers when we transferred our prisoners
to them for their slave labor camps.
On this day,
however, we were happy.
As a gesture of
friendliness, I emptied my rifle and stood it in the corner, even allowing them
to play with it at their request. This thoroughly „broke the ice,“ and soon we
were singing songs we taught each other, or that I had learned in high school
German class („Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen“). Out of gratitude, they baked me
a special small loaf of sweet bread, the only possible present they had left to
offer. I stuffed it in my „Eisenhower jacket,“ and snuck it back to my
barracks, eating it when I had privacy. I have never tasted more delicious
bread, nor felt a deeper sense of communion while eating it. I believe a cosmic
sense of Christ (the Oneness of all Being) revealed its normally hidden
presence to me on that occasion, influencing my later decision to major in
philosophy and religion.
Shortly
afterwards, some of our weak and sickly prisoners were marched off by French
soldiers to their camp. We were riding on a truck behind this column.
Temporarily, it slowed down and dropped back, perhaps because the driver was as
shocked as I was. Whenever a German prisoner staggered or dropped back, he was
hit on the head with a club and killed. The bodies were rolled to the side of
the road to be picked up by another truck. For many, this quick death might
have been preferable to slow starvation in our „killing fields.“
When I finally
saw the German women held in a separate enclosure, I asked why we were holding
them prisoner. I was told they were „camp followers,“ selected as breeding
stock for the S.S. to create a super-race. I spoke to some, and must say I
never met a more spirited or attractive group of women. I certainly didn’t
think they deserved imprisonment.
More and more I
was used as an interpreter, and was able to prevent some particularly
unfortunate arrests. One somewhat amusing incident involved an old farmer who
was being dragged away by several M.P.s. I was told he had a „fancy Nazi medal,“
which they showed me. Fortunately, I had a chart identifying such medals. He’d
been awarded it for having five children! Perhaps his wife was somewhat
relieved to get him „off her back,“ but I didn’t think one of our death camps
was a fair punishment for his contribution to Germany. The M.P.s agreed and
released him to continue his „dirty work.“
Famine began to
spread among the German civilians also. It was a common sight to see German
women up to their elbows in our garbage cans looking for something edible --
that is, if they weren’t chased away.
When I
interviewed mayors of small towns and villages, I was told that their supply of
food had been taken away by „displaced persons“ (foreigners who had worked in
Germany), who packed the food on trucks and drove away. When I reported this,
the response was a shrug. I never saw any Red Cross at the camp or helping
civilians, although their coffee and doughnut stands were available everywhere
else for us. In the meantime, the Germans had to rely on the sharing of hidden
stores until the next harvest.
Hunger made
German women more „available,“ but despite this, rape was prevalent and often
accompanied by additional violence. In particular I remember an eighteen-year
old woman who had the side of her faced smashed with a rifle butt, and was then
raped by two G.I.s. Even the French complained that the rapes, looting and
drunken destructiveness on the part of our troops was excessive. In Le Havre,
we’d been given booklets warning us that the German soldiers had maintained a
high standard of behavior with French civilians who were peaceful, and that we
should do the same. In this we failed miserably.
„So what?“ some
would say. „The enemy’s atrocities were worse than ours.“ It is true that I
experienced only the end of the war, when we were already the victors. The
German opportunity for atrocities had faded, while ours was at hand. But two
wrongs don’t make a right. Rather than copying our enemy’s crimes, we should
aim once and for all to break the cycle of hatred and vengeance that has
plagued and distorted human history. This is why I am speaking out now, 45
years after the crime. We can never prevent individual war crimes, but we can,
if enough of us speak out, influence government policy. We can reject
government propaganda that depicts our enemies as subhuman and encourages the
kind of outrages I witnessed. We can protest the bombing of civilian targets, which
still goes on today. And we can refuse ever to condone our government’s murder
of unarmed and defeated prisoners of war.
I realize it’s
difficult for the average citizen to admit witnessing a crime of this
magnitude, especially if implicated himself. Even G.I.s sympathetic to the
victims were afraid to complain and get into trouble, they told me. And the
danger has not ceased. Since I spoke out a few weeks ago, I have received
threatening calls and had my mailbox smashed. But its been worth it. Writing
about these atrocities has been a catharsis of feelings suppressed too long, a
liberation, that perhaps will remind other witnesses that „the truth will make
us free, have no fear.“ We may even learn a supreme lesson from all this: only
love can conquer all.
About the
author
Martin Brech
lives in Mahopac, New York. When he wrote this memoir essay in 1990, he was an
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry,
New York. Brech holds a master’s degree in theology from Columbia University,
and is a Unitarian-Universalist minister.
This essay was
published in The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1990 (Vol. 10, No.
2), pp. 161-166. (Revised, updated: Nov. 2008)
For Further Reading
James Bacque, Crimes
and Mercies: The Fate of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950
(Toronto: Little, Brown and Co., 1997)
James Bacque, Other
Losses: An investigation into the mass deaths of German prisoners at the hands
of the French and Americans after World War II (Toronto: Stoddart, 1989)
Alfred-Maurice
de Zayas, Nemesis at Postsdam (Lincoln, Neb.: 1990)
Alfred-Maurice
de Zayas, A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the Eastern European
Germans, 1944-1950 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994)
John Dietrich, The
Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (New York:
Algora, 2002)
Ralph Franklin
Keeling, Gruesome Harvest: The Allies’ Postwar War Against the German People
(IHR, 1992). Originally published in Chicago in 1947.
Giles
MacDonogh, After the Reich: The Brutal History of the Allied Occupation
(New York: Basic Books, 2007)
John Sack, An
Eye for an Eye: The Story of Jews Who Sought Revenge for the Holocaust
(2000)
Mark Weber, „New Book Details Mass Killings and Brutal Mistreatment of
Germans at the End of World War Two“ (Summer 2007)
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