The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1918-03-21
GERMAN WAR PRACTICES
Edited by Dana c. Munro, Princeton Uni
versity; George c. Sellery, University
of Wisconsin, and August c krey,
University Of Minnesota
Issued by the Committee on Public Information

Here is the testimony of another
German soldier On. the Eastern front:
Russian Poland, December Is, IA:
I'm the name of Christianity l
send you these words.
"My conscience forces me as
Christian German soldier to inform
you of these lines. ,.,,
"Wounded Russians are killed
with the bayonet according to orders.
''And Russians who have surrend-
cred are often shot down in masses
according to orders, in spite OF their
heart-rending prayers.
<In the hope that you, as the
representative of Christian state
will protest against this, sign my
self,
"A German Soldier and Christian.
II would give my name and regl-
ment, but these words could get me
court -martialed for divulging mill
tary secrets
The third letter from the Western
front, shows the same horror of the
system of which the writer was a
witness.
''To the American government
Washington, U. S. A.
"Englishmen who have surrender
ed are shot down in small groups.
With the French one is more con-
siderate. I ask whether men let
themselves be taken prisoner in order
to be disarmed and shot down after
wards? Is that chivalry in battle?
It is no longer secret among the
people; one hears everywhere that
few prisoners are taken; they are
shot down in small groups. They
say naively: 'Wedon't want any un-
necessary mouths to feed. Where
there is no one to enter complaint,
there is no judge Is there no power
in the world which can put an end to
these murders and rescue the VIC
tins? Where is Christianity? Where
is right? Might is right.
"a Soldier and Man Who is No Bar
barian.'
Many of the Germans, as has been
already indicated, do not believe the
reports of the atrocities committed
by the Belgian civilians and refuse
to accept the system of frightfulness.
The Vorwarts, the leading socialist
paper, which has a very wide circle
of readers, has opposed the policy of
frightfulness. All honor to it's edi-
tors who have so courageously op-
posed the powerful military authori-
ty! Its editorial, entitled "Our
Foes" published August %, 1914,
reads as follows:
eve wish to show ourselves hu-
name and friendly towards those
whom the fortune of war has played
into our hands as prisoners. But we
wish also to be humane towards our
foes on the field. we must fight
them. But fighting does not
mean numbering. 1t does not mean
being barbarous.
"What should one say when even
such an organ as the Deutsches OFF,
zier-Blatt expresses it's sympathy
with a demand that the beasts who
are taken as francStoreurs should not
be killed but only wounded so that
they may then be left to fate which
makes any help impossible? or
what should we say when the Deuts-
ches Offizier-Blatt states that a punl- !
tive destruction even of whole re-
giOns' cannot afford full recompense
for the bones of a single murdered |
Pomeranian grenadier" Those are
the desires of bload-thirsty fanatics
and we are thoroughly ashamed OF
ourselves because it is possible that
there are people among us who urge
such things. Such disclosures in
themselves, even if they are not fol-
lowed out, are likely to place our
fighting quite in the wrong before all
the world. s x Let us show knight
Illness even though we are of the pro-
letariat. Let us take such pains that
when the fight has finally been fought
it will also not be so difficult again
to work in common as brothers with
our. class associates on the other
side of the border.
On the following day, August "a,
1914, the Vorwarts returned to the
attack in an editorial Against Bar
barism.'
Some Germans Demand "Orgies of
BarbariSm."
'One might, in the first place, pos
sibly believe that such demand for
a bloody vengeance (against alleged
Belgian outrages) emanates from a
single disease-racked brain; but it
appears that whole groups among
certain classes who represent German
Kultur want to indulge in orgies Of
barbarism and to devise whole sys-
tenn for the purpose of organizing a
war of revenge
what of law and custom! Such
thoughts do not stir great nation.
Thus in a leading article of the Ber-
liner Neuests Nachrichten, the de-
mand is made that all the authori-
ties in Brussels-one, the second