The Donaldsonville chief., 1919-04-05
INHUMAN HUN ATROCITIES.
Germany Organized Destructive Com.
panies in Advance of War.


panies in Advance of War.
The following article taken from a
recent issue Of the New Orleans Item
throws additional light upon the de-
struction, the horrors and the brutal
tiles perpetrated by the Germans up
on their helpless victims during the
world war:
ssf'he discovery Of the secret books
of the German governor of Belgium,
and their presentation at the con-
ference at Paris, has given new
sensation to nefve-tlred world.
Threatened in November, 1914, by
the approach Of the victorious allied
army, the Hun governor fled. So
imminent was his peril that the
records of four years, with several
rooms filled with various war records,
were left intact. These records
prove that Germany organized in ad-
vance five 'wrecking companies,
whose business it was to loot factories
Of their machinery, stores OF their
goods, houses Of their furniture, gal
leries of their pictures and marbles,
and churches and Libraries of their
books, manuscripts, and various art
treasures. As the law of civilized
nations and the treaties with Ger
many exempt all civilian property,
and all buildings related to education,
religion or art, this proof that Ger
many organized her crimes, planned
the looting Systematically, is impor
tant in the highest degree at this
moment, when the conference is fix
ing the indemnities to be paid by the
Hun.
"These records are unique in that
for the first time in history they show
how an educated intellect and a de-
praved heart can turn wickedness
and crime into a science. We put
our thieves and house-burners into
jail, as we do all men who are guilty
of murder and rape. These German
devils not only practiced every crime,
that with us ends in the penitentiary
or the hangman's noose, but taught
these crimes as science, organized
them as an art, and then paid COM
mission to Hun soldiers to commit
these crimes. These five destruction
companies were founded by and op-
Grated under the auspices of the gov
ernment of occupation, with the gov
ernor general of Brussels acting as
general manager, full reports being
sent regularly to Berlin.
EThe books and records show that
first the wrecking commission imme-
diately after the occupation Of Bel
gium and French territory made an
inventory Of all factories, stores,
houses, schools, ETC., with full indices.
Second, statement was then sent to
Germany to those firms that might
buy the loot. Third, the destruction
company received S per cent commits
sion on the gross value of all machin-
cry and treasure carried away.
Fourth, they received % marks, or.
80 cents per ton for everything
destroyed that they could not ship,
when short Of freight trains. Their
records show that up to April, 1913,
their freight trains had carried across
the Rhine thirty-six million tons of
iron and steel, which is equal to one
years production by the furnaces Of
the United States. In Gerberviller
twenty thousand Huns, in three
hours and a half, looted every house,
store and factory, never leaving be-
hind a single chair, carpet, stove,
door or window. They gutted the
town, and left it stripped before they
set fire to the homes, after which they
killed even the old men up to ninety
years of age. Standing before those
ruined cellars, / heard the testimony
Of victims who had escaped. It was
not war that ruined France and Bel
GUM. 1t was not war that ruined
Poland, where there are no children
lnder five years of age; or Serbia,
md northeastern Italy, where Major
gressy found, the morning after the
Germans fled, a group of young Wo-
nen around table with their tongues
,ailed down to that table. We are
lot making a treaty with enemy sol-
liers, but with inhuman thieves and
Out of their own mouths
he Blond Beast stands convicted.
lis own hands wrote the records of
lis five destruction copmanies' 7"
BACK BAD TODAY?
Backache is usually kidney-ache
nd makes you dull, nervous and