Montana labor news., 1945-06-28
ISPENT 4 MONTHS
in A NAZI
PRISON CAMP
BY PFC. JOHN H. DUNN, JR.
(Federat ted Press)


(Pfc John H Dunn, Jr., is Fed
Grated Press news editor on leave Of
absence while serving in the infant
ry. His opinions are his own and he
is obviously not speaking for the
Army or the War department, but
he believes his opinions are shared
by GIs in general. This belief is
based on contact with hundreds Of
them during two years in the Army,
four months of which were spent in
intimate contact with 5000 Of them
at Stalag lob at Bad Orb, Ger
many. member Of the American
Newspaper Guild since its birth, he
also believes no union man will find
much to disagree with in this outlook
on what to do with Germany
A fellow CT remarked to me not so
long ago that it was his first sight OF
a German child that put iron in his
soul.
Looking at that red checked sausage
legged kid" this combat veteran wryly
said, Il couldn't get out OF my mind the
comparison with the spindly legs and
pale faces of the children of Italy
France and Belgium. BY starving mil
lions of other children to death, Hitler
had kept loyal to him the parents of
that German kid"
This soldiers remark, it would SEEM
contains the best answer to those who
now argue that the German people have
suffered too from the war and should not
be made to pay for the crimes of Hitler,
Goering and their Nazi hordes The
plain fact is that this crime paid-the
German people as well as Hitler.
Another plain fact is that Hitlers
murderous course which loaded German
homes with French wines, italian
cheeses, Russian furs, Norwegian fish,
Danish butter and other loot also killed
so many other Europeans that there is
not enough labor in the Allied nations
for the task of reconstruction. 1t would
seem simple justice than that for five
years Of comparatively good living, the
German people should pay with its labor
power
Marching to a German prison camp
last winter, I was surprised to see that
the Germans in the towns through
which we passed were better dressed and
looked better fed than the English peo-
pie. once inside the prison. we found
that if we had been able to pay black
market prices, we could have had plenty
of meat. butter and other food from
the civilians in our area.
The story of how we American prison
ers were starved during those bitter
weeks before liberation is too well known
to be repeated now, but perhaps you
have forgotten the Germans excuse. Tc
all our protests the Germans always re-
plied that the German people too were
being starved to death and that if they
rad the food, We would have got plenty
After liberation an examination of the
warehouses in our region and the cellars
of the civilians disclosed that they hac
been eating we'll and drinking We'll 700
Those who now argue for mercy TO-
ward the German and against whal
they are pleased to call slave labor
probably have never seen what a Ger
man mine can do to man. We'll
have. And when I read now Of French
Belgian. Ukanian or Yugoslav farmer
blowing fields in which thousands o
these mines were sown, I ask whethe
that farmer who fought on our slo'
should be blown to bits or whether slav'
labor from Germany should go out INK
those mines and remove them.
Forty million lives were lost TO th'
greed of the German war machine. L
it too much to ask that five or six milllol
German soldiers who enjoyed the rol
of conqueror for so long should now pa