The Snowflake herald., 1918-02-08
Murder, PiIIage and Arson Part
of Deliberate Scheme of
Warfare.
HIGH OFFICERS GO ON RECORD
No Possible Evasion of Responsibility
for BestiaI Acts Which for Centu-
ries Have Had No Parallel
Officially Indorsed.

are beginning to learn the truth con-
cerning the conduct of the war By
Germany. Proof is offered that Ger
man officials deliberately lied IN
their statements concerning Gtroci-
ties committed By the BeIgianS and
allies. That their ovn soldiers 1Oere
disgusted By the crue7ties procticed
at the order Of high officers Of the
kaiser IS Shown. ErtractS taken
from pamphlets issued fOlIow:
The Vorwaerts of Berlin, October %,
1914 said:
eve have already been able to es-
tablish the falseness of a great number
of assertions which have been made
with great precision and published
everywhere in the press, concerning al
legged cruelties committed, by the popu-
lationS of the countries with which
Germany is at war, upon German sol
diers and civilians. We are now in po-
stion to silence two others of these
fantastic stories.
''The war correspondent of the Ber-
| liner Tageblatt spoke a few weeks
ago of cigars and cigarettes filled with
powder alleged to have been given out
or sold to our soldiers with diabOlical
intent. He even pretended that he had
seen with his own eyes hundreds Of
this kind of cigarettes. We learn from
an authentic source that this story of
cigars and cigarettes is nothing but a
! brazen invention. Stories of soldiers
whose eyes are alleged to have been
! torn out by francs-tireurs are circulat-
ed throughout Germany. Not single
case of this kind has been officially eS-
| tablished.
''It matters little that reports of this
nature bear an appearance of positive
certitude, or are even vOuched for by
eye-witnesses. The desire n notoriety,
! the absence of criticism, and personal
error play an unfortunate part in the
days in which we are living. Every
nose shot off or simply bound up,
! every eye removed, is Immediately
! transformed into a nose or eye torn
away by the francs-tireurs. Already the
! VolkSzeitung of Cologne has been able,
contrary to the very categorical asser-
tiOns from Aix-la- Chapelle, to prove
/ that there was no soldier with his eyes
! torn out in the field ambulance of this
! town. It was said, also, that people
wounded in this way were under treat
ment in the neighbOrhOOd of Berlin,
hI1f VXyhn n 1iysin h0 hnnV 10
| in regard to these reports, their abso-
| lutte falSity has been demonstrated. At
! length these reports were concentrated
at Gross Lichterfelde. A newspaper
published at noon and widely circu-
lated in Berlin printed q few days ago
in large type the news that at the
LaZarettO of Lichterfelde alone there
were ten German soldiers, only slight
ly wounded whose eyes had been wick
edly torn out But to a request for.
information by COmrade Liebknecht
the following written reply was sent
by the chief medical officer of the
aforementioned field hospital, dated
the eighteenth of the month:
"'Sir: Happily there is no truth
whatever in these stories.
Yours obediently,
PROFESSOR RAUTENBERG,'
German Soldiers Protested.
Thus the teachings of the German
War Book and of the German apostles
of frightfulness, suspicion and hatred,
had now begun to bear their natural
fruit. But the voice Of protest was.
not entirely silent. A considerable
number of letters by German soldiers
who were shocked by the German
atrocities were sent to Ambassador
Gerard, because he was the representa-
tive of the United States, the leading
neutral nation. The three letters
which follow, in translation, were re-
ceived by the American ambassador
from German soldiers.
Here is the protest of a German SOL
dier, an eyewitness of the slaughter of
Russian soldiers in the Masurian lakes
and SwampS:
''It was frightful, heart-rending, as
these masses of human beings were
driven to destruction Above the ter
rible thunder of the cannon could be
heard the heart-rending cries of the
Russians: % Prussians o Prussiansr =
but there was no mercy. Our captain
had ordered: The whole LOT must die;
so rapid fire. AS have heard, five
men and one officer on our side went
mad from these heart-rending cries.
But most of my comrades and the Off
GERS jOked as the unarmed and helpless
Russians shrieked for mercy while
they were being suffocated in the
swamps and shot down. The order
was: Close up and at it harderp Fol
days afterwards those heart-rendina
yells followed me and / dare not thihl
of them or shall go mad. There is no
God, there is no morality ard no ethics
any more. There are no human beings
any more, but only beasts. Down with
militariSm.
"If you are truth-loving man.
- IL