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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:31
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Via Rantburg and other blogs.
'EFL (by Rantburg) -- Life Magazine, January 7, 1946
We are in a cabin deep down below decks on a Navy ship jam-packed with troops that’s pitching and creaking its way across the Atlantic in a winter gale. There is a man in every bunk. There’s a man wedged into every corner. There’s a man in every chair. The air is dense with cigarette smoke and with the staleness of packed troops and sour wool.
“Don’t think I’m sticking up for the Germans,” puts in the lanky young captain in the upper berth, “but…”
“To hell with the Germans,” says the broad-shouldered dark lieutenant. “It’s what our boys have been doing that worries me.”
The lieutenant has been talking about the traffic in Army property, the leaking of gasoline into the black market in France and Belgium even while the fighting was going on, the way the Army kicks the civilians around, the looting.
“Lust, liquor and loot are the soldier’s pay,” interrupts a red-faced major.
The lieutenant comes out with his conclusion: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” You hear these two phrases again and again in about every bull session on the shop. “Two wrongs don’t make a right” and “Don’t think I’m sticking up for the Germans, but….”
The troops returning home are worried. “We’ve lost the peace,” men tell you. “We can’t make it stick.”
A tour of the beaten-up cities of Europe six months after victory is a mighty sobering experience for anyone. Europeans. Friend and foe alike, look you accusingly in the face and tell you how bitterly they are disappointed in you as an American. They cite the evolution of the word “liberation.” Before the Normandy landings it meant to be freed from the tyranny of the Nazis. Now it stands in the minds of the civilians for one thing, looting.
You try to explain to these Europeans that they expected too much. They answer that they had a right to, that after the last was America was the hope of the world. They talk about the Hoover relief, the work of the Quakers, the speeches of Woodrow Wilson. They don’t blame us for the fading of that hope. But they blame us now.
Never has American prestige in Europe been lower. People never tire of telling you of the ignorance and rowdy-ism of American troops, of out misunderstanding of European conditions. They say that the theft and sale of Army supplies by our troops is the basis of their black market. They blame us for the corruption and disorganization of UNRRA. They blame us for the fumbling timidity of our negotiations with the Soviet Union. They tell us that our mechanical de-nazification policy in Germany is producing results opposite to those we planned. “Have you no statesmen in America?” they ask. '
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Snotty
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I thought his parenthetic commas made the point quite well. Replace the ', like me,' commas with brackets and you will see what its all about.
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Snotty
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On topic though, The above seems to equate europe not including the UK. Im not in a position to speak for other countrys, but the negative points of the article apply much less here.
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Snotty
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Ah, I appreciated the humour of the first part. The grammer nazi sarcasm of the second line must have been too dry for my taste.
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Snotty
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There lies the problem then. The second line seemed redundant after getting the first line without its aid.
Sarcasm and the internet, two media not born for each other.
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VetLegion
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What went wrong with 'denazification' of Germany?
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:31
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quote:
Originally posted by Kirnwaffen
Perhaps the Western powers were slightly more concerned with humanity than the Soviets. Just a thought... |
Nein. Any cursory look at the Western powers treatment of their colonies and neo-colonies should quickly disabuse you of that notion. No, the U.S. wanted to build up Germany quickly in order to use Germany (and in the East, Japan) in order to thwart the very real danger of Communism in the occupied countries.
Greece and Italy very nearly went Communist, Korea probably would have gone Communist, North and South, had the U.S. not strongly backed Korean fascists and those who had collaborated with the Japanese. The same in Vietnam and the Philippines (though different methods of keeping the Commies from power were used).
Obviously, the USSR had no such worries, since the vast majority of Communists were trusting fools and would follow Stalin blindly (often to their doom). In fact, in many countries, Stalin orderd the Communists to stand down, as in Greece, Italy, and China (though after a couple of years they began to ignore him - and the Chinese Commies never really listened to him after 1927).
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MichaeltheGreat
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Apolyton Grand Executioner
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mooning the house that Ruth built.
Oct 1999
time: 21:31
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
So we should ignore war criminals if it's to our benefit? |
That depends - if you consider membership in the Nazi party in and of itself to be a war crime, with no other actions or control of other actions necessary, you have a bit of a problem.
Obviously, if the party membership was accompanied by a position in the SS/SD or Gestapo, etc. you could make a sweeping generalization that the scumbag in question was guilty of something.
Even down to the gauleiter level, getting rid of those people would not be an issue, since they were mostly scum who ass-kissed their way into their positions, but there were a lot of nominal party members that actually ran things - rail systems, utilities, communications, that were placed under party control for strategic reasons. Getting rid of those people, unless they were specifically involved and provably involved in criminal acts, would be silly.
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Apolyton Time is 00:31. |
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17-10-2003 22:54
France, Belgium and Germany - so that explains it
Exactly, why do you think Uncle Joe wanted Hitler's skull? 
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