[Helmut Von Moltke]

Thought this one would be intresting to post.

German people have right to honor their war heroes
by:CHARLEY REESE

It is time to consign World War II propaganda to the dustbin of history and allow the German people to revere their military heroes. They certainly had a lot of them in World War II.
I am not, of course, talking about the Nazi regime. I'm talking about the ordinary German soldiers who, like the ordinary American and British soldiers, went to war when their political leaders told them to go war. The battlefield exploits of the German army were outstanding.

As Americans, we should thank God that so many German divisions were being chewed up on the Eastern Front, because if they had been in Normandy, we'd probably still be trying to get ashore. Some British guy once said that nobody knows what real war is until he fights the Germans. The German soldiers of World War II certainly proved that.
Another British historian observed that whenever the Allies and the Germans were on an equal footing, the Allies lost.
It was America's industrial might and the Red Army that finally wore them down, disadvantaged as they were by loony leaders in Berlin.

t's a truism among soldiers that once the war starts, nobody fights for political goals; they fight to save themselves and their comrades. All of those young Germans who died in that savage war deserve to be remembered for their cou-rage and their fidelity to duty and not be tarred by the sins of political leaders far from the battlefield.
Some German soldiers committed atrocities, but so did we all, as every side always does in wars. But the majority of the German soldiers were guilty of noth-ing but doing their duty, and there is no reason for any German today to be asham-ed of them. Most of them were fighting for their homes and families and not for Nazi ideology.

It's ironic that of all the wartime lead-ers, Josef Stalin profited most. Franklin Roosevelt died before the war ended. Winston Churchill was voted out of office shortly after the war. Adolf Hitler, of course, died in his bunker, a suicide. What did the war accomplish? Aside from removing two bad governments, it accomplished the enslavement of half of Europe, the deaths of 55 million people and the beginning of the Cold War. That so many millions of young men, as well as millions of innocent civilians on all sides, died because of a bunch of politicians and despots is enough to make you weep.

This past week, there was a lot of silly talk about whether the Germans were conquered or liberated. They were con-quered and treated quite badly immedi-ately after the war by the Americans, the British and the Russians. Many died of starvation and illness. Several million Germans in western Poland were forced out of their homes as Stalin moved Poland's boundaries to the west to keep the eastern part within the Soviet Union.
Hitler had duped the German people just as our politicians dupe us. Nobody who has seen how easily Americans are swayed by demagogues should criticize the German people. The politicians in the old Weimar Republic made a fatal miscalculation when they appointed Hitler chancellor in 1933.
They were sure they could control him. Instead, he quickly got control of them.
But the rank-and-file German soldiers did just what ours do. When their govern-ment called, they responded. When their government went to war, they fought in it. It's very hard to see a conflict from the other's point of view, but everyone ought to try. What you find if you can succeed are human beings just like us.

The descendants of those German soldiers have every right to be proud of their ancestors' military accomplishments, just as we are proud of ours. They fought heroically under extremely bad circum-stances and deserve credit for their courage, their discipline and their com-petence. The young men in the German army, navy and air force gave their all for their country, even though some of them despised its leadership.

Sixty years after the fact, it's time for the world to get off Germany's back and let it assume its rightful place among the family of nations without people con-stantly laying a guilt trip on the German people. A war hero is a war hero, and Germany certainly has had its share of true heroes who deserve to be honored by their countrymen.

K