Iditarod pioneer., 1917-06-23
HORRIBLE DETAILS GIVEN
 OF UTILIZATION OF BODIES
 OF DEAD GERMAN SOLDIERS

Were the following grewsome story told in some sensational newspaper ii would be given little credence. But it is credited to Henry Watterson in the Louisville Courier Journal and is given in his words for what it is worth. If true (and the horrible de tails lend color to its credibility), it shows the stress of the German empire as nothing else could Mir Watterson says:
 "The London Times published few days ago the story that the Germa ndead are stripped bound in bundles of four with iron wire, hauled to waiting railroad trains and shipped to reducing plant, where the fats and oils are recovered for chemical uses 1 including the making of explosives The bones are ground for fertilizer and pig feed l To many persons the tale was incredible a mere column of horror to entertain the idle reader or vent British spleen against the | Germans.
 "The Times now comes forward with a more detailed story of the intensive treat ment of the German soldier, to the end that the empire may profit by using him after he is killed as well as while he is alive. In standardization German papers are quoted, and the story as 1t now appears seems as well authenticated as any chronicle of al legged facts could be- If it still is incredible it is only because the minds of many persons cannot adjust themselves to the reception of the story that civilized people would treat the corpses of gallant soldiers as a mere commodity to be employed as a measure of national economy.
 "American consuls formerly in Germany are quoted by the Times as saying that the Germans have been for some time making ntroglvcerin and obtaining the essentials of other explosives from the corpses of soldiers | killed in battle The German censorS now are permitting their press to report the ! rendering of the cOrpses as an example of the high efficiency of Germany, the Times says Belgian newspapers have before printed the news that the trains laden with i bundles of corpSes are dispatched to Gerol- stein each car labeled D. A. V. G. mean ! ing Deutschem Abfalls Nerwerttungsges- ellschaft which, translated, is The German ! Offal Utilization Company, Limited The factory is situated GOO yards from a rail road which connects with St. With, near the Belgian frontier, with Gerolstein. The site of the plant Is in 8 forest Tn the little freduented district of Eifel southwest of Coblentz 4 spur leads to the factory which is surrounded by charged wires, and oper- ated by workers who are not permitted to leave the place
 The following account of the reception and treatment of the bodies is given:
 "The factory deals especially with the dead from the western front. If the results are as good as the company hopes another will be established on the eastern front.
 "The trains arrive full of bodies, which are unloaded by workers who live at the works The men wear oilskin overalls and masks with eye pieces, and are equipped with long, hooked poles. They push the bundles of bodies to an endless chain into a l0np narrow compartment, where they pass through a bath which disinfects them. They go on through drying chamber and are automatically carried to great cauldron into which they gre dropped by an appar atus which detaches them from the chain. They remain from six to eight hours
 in the cauldron, where they are treated by i steam, which breaks them up while they are slowly stirred by machinery. The fats l Glt D!Ohtu IlltO Sit<l !ilG, q iDl III pi tcIl'F and oils which require to be red!Stilled be fore they can be used. Distillation is car red out by boiling the oil with carbonate of soda and some part of the by-products resulting is used by the soap-makers. The refined oil Is sent out in small casks like l those used for petroleum and is yellowish | brown.
 "The fumes are exhausted from the buildings by electric fans and are sucked through a great pipe to the northeastern corner. where they are condensed and the refuse resulting is discharged into sewer. There is no high chimney, as the boiler and furnaces are supplied with air by electric fans.
 There is laboratory and in charge of the works Is a chief chemist with two as sistants and seventy-eight men. All the employees are soldiers attached to the Eighth army corps. There is a sanatorium near the works and under no pretext is any man permitted to leave. They are guarded as prisoners at the appalling work.
 Photographic fac similies of news ar ticle in the Lokal Anzeiger of Berlin are presented by the Times to convince the in credulous reader. The Lokal Anzelger re fers to the corpse exploitation establish ment,' using the German term, 'kadaverver wertunbsanstall,' and says:
 "'The fats here are turned into lubricat ing oils and everything else is ground down in the mill, the bones into powder, which is used for mixing with pigs food and as manure. Nothing can be permitted to go to waste.
 "It is conceivable that barbarians who could commit such atrocities as the Germans have committed upon noncombatants in enemy countries might balk at the horrors of rendering their dead in a reduction plant but it is equally conceivable that a strict interpretation of the teachings of Germany's school of imperialistic philosophers and mill tary writers would make the economic dis posal of the dead seem an act of high pa triotism upon the part of the living, one which consecrates even the ashes of the German soldier to the cause of his country General Won Bernhard, it is imaginable would consider the concluding stanza of
 The Blvouac of the Dead mere romantic Hnh GIh +bo II