The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1945-06-15

they are pleased to call "slave labor"
probably have never seen what Ger
man mine can do to man. Wen, |
have. And when l read now of French,
Belgian, Ukranian or Yugoslav farm
ers blowing fields in which thousands
of these mines were wn, | ask
whether that farmer who fought on
our side should be blown to bits or
whether slave labor from Germany
should go out find those mines and
remove them.
| Certainly there were Germans who
opposed Hitler. The official war de-
partment pictures which accompany
this article are eloquent testimony to
that. They are also evidence that so
long as their bellies were full, the
German people in general were will
ing to permit such atrocities in their
midst.
Forty million lives were lost to the
greed of the German war machine. Is
it too much to ask that five or six
million German soldiers who enjoyed
the role of conqueror for so long
should now pay back some of that
loss?
1t is also commonly accepted that
useful labor is about the best cure
for a criminal Let the German earn
his way back into respectable society
and in earning, perhaps he will learn
something too of democracy and it's
ways as he works among the peoples |
of Europe.
Some may argue that the ordinary |
German is not criminal. Perhaps |
he is not in the sense of a nazi hatch
ct man, or an SIS trooper, or U-boat
ways held that the accomplice after
the fact is as guilty as the criminal
himself
l have some acquaintance with the
criminal tendencies of simple German
soldiers other than those covered by
the rules of war. When we were cap
tured in the Ardennes battle last win
ter, the German soldiers-hundreds of
him-robbed us of our watches, our
money, our little remaining food, our
overcoats, overshoes and even shoes
in some instances.
And one evening weeks later stand
ing at the prison fence, we watched
a column of German soldiers march
past, carrying under their arms Amer
lean Red Cross packages which were
intended for hunger-ridden stomachs
and which, the German authorities
had said, were destroyed that after
noon in strafing raid by American
planes
The German soldier already looks
upon Americans as soft-hearted fools
although he finally had to admit we
were better soldiers than he liked to
think. What do the humanitarians
back home think will be his reaction |
if he is allowed to go unpublished for
his crimes of looting and rape?
During our stay in the German prl-
son we held public forums on many
issues. One day we discussed what
to do with Germany after the victory
And the vote of the 800 or so GIs at
the forum was unanimous in the be-
lief that Germany should make repa-
rations for the colossal damage she {
had done to the world; not in gold,
that had failed after the last war,
but in the only power she would have
left and the only thing of value to
anyone else-labor.
1t may be argued that 500 men suf- |
lering starvation filth and vermin in :
a German prison camp could not be ,
too objective in approaching the prob
lem of what to do with Germany.
Neither were, 1 imagine, the men OF {
1776 when they framed the Declara- {;
ton of independence, which still
serves the world as a model of de-
mocracy and a gospel of humanity.