The Bretzenheim POW Camp
2,142 words
We ran a camp at Bretzenheim, near Bingen on the Rhine.
One hundred thousand unwilling guests went once a day to dine.
We weren’t at all prepared for them; facilities were crude —
barbed wire and machine guns, and a scarcity of food. (more…)
8,976 words
Author’s Note:
As we’ve come to appreciate with each passing year, World War Two was the most evil manifestation in human history. No other conflict even comes close in matching that war for its sweeping, sadistic and unspeakable crimes. Mass murder of surrendering soldiers, mass starvation of helpless civilians, mass rape of women and children, (more…)
The Frauenkirche, Dresden, before February 13-14, 1945
8,366 words
German translation here
Editor’s Note:
The following account of the destruction of Dresden on the night of February 13–14, 1945, is an excerpt from chapter 10 of Hellstorm: The Death of Nazi Germany, 1944–1947
30 words
At the gates of heaven
he did not know the names
beyond the bombing bay.
But many miles away
he could still see the flames
judging the dead in Dresden.
2,114 words
Following the surrender of German forces at the end of World War Two nearly one million captured German soldiers had their status downgraded from Prisoners of War (POWs) to Disarmed Enemy Forces. The purpose was to provide the Allied force with a ready supply of slave labor by skirting around the Geneva Convention. In Denmark, under the direction of the British, two thousand soldiers were forced to clear mines along the west coast in violation of International laws prohibiting the use of captured soldiers for dangerous jobs. (more…)
4,351 words
Part 1 of 2
Mark Mazower
Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe
New York: Penguin Press, 2008
I like to think I am not an uncritical person. Before reading a “heretical” book, I almost always read a mainstream book on the topic first, so I know how to situate the possibly more outlandish claims (more…)
136 words
Its weathercock covered with fresh snow,
the barn is dreamy on the hill.
Out of the woods, and lying low,
crawl green men, in . . . in for the kill.
167 words
On 27 January 1945 the Red Army had just been defeated in an armor engagement with the 20th Panzer Division, which was retreating to escape encirclement, slightly south of Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia. Two villages were punished for the defeat: Preiswitz, populated by Poles, and neighboring Schönwald, populated by Germans. In total, 200 innocent civilians were murdered in cold blood. (more…)
229 words
Wandervogel . . . Nicht Mehr
Rhineland 1946
We are going to die here. Not soldiers but
Prisoners of war now, held where snow turned sleet
Hits down to our bones. The cold makes us shut
Our eyes against losing too much body heat.
We are the animals? We who live like
This: so frozen, so hungry every day
(more…)
2,021 words
Robert Brasillach on trial
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
“Épuration,” literally meaning “purge,” “cleansing,” or “purification,” was the process of killing, imprisoning, ostracizing, or otherwise punishing those deemed to have been traitors by the Gaullist government and the Resistance following the eviction of German forces from France in 1944-45. (more…)
877 words
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
This article is drawn from Dominique Venner’s history of the twentieth century, Le Siècle de 1914 (Paris: Pygmalion, 2006), 329-31.
In Germany itself, since 1985, May 8 has been raised up as a commemoration of the Nazi defeat. [. . .] A great ambiguity. (more…)
1,906 words
Part 2 of 2
None suffered more in war, none suffered more in “peace,” than German women and girls. Of all the war crimes committed by the Allies during World War Two, the massive rapes of helpless women and children were perhaps the most monstrous. Of course, an untold number of German women and children did not survive the violent, nonstop assaults. One million? Two million? Ten million? Since no one in power cared, no one was counting. (more…)
