The Hyperlinks of History

[rothstei] Jeez, bud. Where do you come up with this shiit?
[Adam] Hyperlinks, man. When you're drunk, they do the thinking for you. I'm going to watch Aeon Flux (flucks) now.

[begin surfing...]

A Little History Lesson

Consider, if you will, the following:

GOERING: Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leader of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drage the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliment or a Communist dictatorship.

GILBERT: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

GOERING: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do it tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and (for) exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

-Nuremberg Diary, 1947.

[link!]

In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau. Camp records list 130,000 persons killed in the camp, with thousands more who died due to the conditions in the camp. In early 1945, there was a typhus epidemic in the camp followed by an evacuation, in which large numbers of the weaker prisoners died.

In the last war months the conditions were catastrophic in the camp. Due to continual new transportations from the front the camp was constantly overcrowded, the hygenic conditions were beneath human dignity. Starting from the end of 1944 up to the day of liberation 15000 people died, about half of all victims in KZ Dachau. On 27 April Victor Mauer, delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross, was allowed to enter camps and distribute food. In the evening of the same day a prisoner transport arrived from Buchenwald. Only 800 survivors were brought from originally 4,480 to 4,800 persons in transit. Over 2,300 corpses were let lie in and around the train.

[link!]

The last leader of the camp's prisoners was Oskar Müller (an imprisoned German anti-fascist), who later became minister of labor for Hesse. According to the report of Father Johannes Maria Lenz, Müller sent two prisoners to bring the U.S. Army to free the camp, because orders had come to kill all the prisoners.

U.S. soldiers, shocked at what they discovered in the concentration camp, randomly shot and killed an estimated 50 to 120 German SS-Totenkopfverbände guards as they attempted to surrender.

Adjoining buildings included a Waffen-SS training camp and a Red Cross-marked hospital housing wounded soldiers from the Eastern Front who had been found unfit for duty. US soldiers entered the hospital and ordered everyone out. The American GIs decided to separate the guards from Wehrmacht soldiers; however, this was not done carefully. It is alleged that those killed then included members of the regular Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS combat troops, as well as Axis volunteers from Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Denmark. As soon as the shooting started, the battalion commander, Colonel Felix L. Sparks, was alerted by the sound of gunfire and ran over to stop the shooting, but nevertheless at least 12 were machine-gunned to death. According to the testimony of a German survivor, the wounded were given razor blades by US medics to "finish themselves off."

After the hospital shooting, the U.S. soldiers gave a number of handguns to the now liberated inmates. It has been claimed by witnesses that they tortured and killed an estimated 40 more German soldiers, either SS guard-staff or regular troops. The same witnesses claim that many of the German soldiers killed by the inmates were beaten to death with shovels and other tools. Numerous Kapo prisoner-guards were also brutally killed by the inmates.

[link!]

Robert Byrd (Sen-D, W. Virgina) read that quote from The Nuremberg Diary when voicing his opposition to the war in Iraq in 2003. In 1945 Dachau was liberated, part of the Final Solution which Goering had designed. In that year Robert Byrd was a member of the Klu Klux Klan. At that time Byrd vowed never to fight: "with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

[link!]

Sources: Goering, Nuremberg Diary, Robert Byrd, Dachau Liberation, Dachau, Dachau Masssacre


Have a nice day, human.