
Letters of an Army doctor who helped free the Dachau concentration camp in 1945 - samclemens
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121779/liberator-never-free
======
DanielBMarkham
Many western criminal justice systems have what is sometimes called a "crime
passionnel", a crime of passion. Man catches his spouse in bed with another
man, goes crazy, and proceeds to kill both of them. The law gives much leeway
when this happens, as it is not felt that the average person can withstand but
so much without snapping.

In the military, one of the key things officers are taught is not to get
emotionally caught up in what's happening. Stay cool, make decisions, think
calmly for the group and leave the passion to others. Even when you make a big
deal out of some emotional outburst, such as in jumping up and yelling
"Charge, men!", it should be for dispassionate and good tactical/strategic
reasons.

But coming into to Dachau just minutes after the SS left? Seeing 40,000 people
in that state? I don't think any member of an army or otherwise rational human
being would be called to justice for going just a little bit crazy. In fact, I
would be extremely disturbed by those who were not extremely disturbed by what
they saw.

War is a hell of a thing, and even in that hell, what these soldiers went
through must have scarred them for life. (I'm not trying to de-emphasize the
much worse suffering the residents had, only point out the great emotional
roller-coaster they must have experienced moving between "we're winning the
war" and "oh. my. god.")

------
allendoerfer
Both Germany and the US do not like to think about US soldiers committing war
crimes or even behaving badly in WWII.

The US thinks so, because its war was all about moral high ground, ignoring
its very own blatant racism at home.

Germany likes to think so, because the liberation by the US actually ended in
being liberated. Millions of civilians had to flee and/or were being raped by
the Red army. Prisoners of war ended in Siberian gulags for decades, while the
GDR was constructed at home.

I think with time passing it becomes easier to paint a more complex and
realistic picture acknowledging the situation these (often young) people were
in, without justifying their actions. I would like to see glorification
shifting more and more to memorization of a time and of circumstances that
brought out the worst in people and must never happen again anywhere in the
world.

Edit: indeed, decades

~~~
jedrek
> Prisoners of war ended in Siberian gulags for centuries, while the GDR was
> constructed at home.

I think you mean decades?

~~~
M8
No, and there were literally billions of them. And also soviet leaders were
eating babies. Alive.

~~~
allendoerfer
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimatvertriebene](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heimatvertriebene)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union)

And also:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin)

Spoiler: He was not nice to his own people, nor to others.

------
jrapdx3
What an outstanding and moving article. When I lived in Germany years ago I
visited Dachau and other sites. Despite the long interval since the camps were
used, the aura of the atrocities committed there was still palpable.

The doctor's letters are no doubt an immensely valuable resource concerning
history of WWII and the holocaust. More importantly, it's a record of human
reaction to the horrors of what he observed, and very likely provides insight
into experience that transforms a person so adversely.

Nowadays we call it PTSD and of course it's still a scourge in a world filled
with horrific conflict. Perhaps these letters would encourage people suffering
in the way the doctor knew to get treatment, above all talk about it, hard as
that is to do.

I hope the letters are donated to a proper archive for preservation and made
accessible so that the lessons contained can be widely shared, and become an
encouragement to healing.

~~~
SixSigma
Crass - The Gas Man Cometh

Auschwitz's now a tourist spot for the goggle eyed to pry, / Still in working
order just for you and I.

[http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/crass/thegasmancometh.html](http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/crass/thegasmancometh.html)

~~~
ppadron
Never thought I would see a Crass quote on Hacker News =)

~~~
SixSigma
Anti-capitalist ranting isn't very appropriate or welcome too often round
these parts =)

I feared the worst when it went to -1, I've been shadowbanned a couple of
times for single posts.

------
Diederich
A bit of a personal, emotional ramble ahead.

My grandparents raised me, and my grandfather lived through a whole variety of
horrible experiences in WWII in the Pacific and China/Burma/India theaters.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalcanal_Campaign](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalcanal_Campaign)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill%27s_Marauders](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill%27s_Marauders)

I do not deeply understand their relationship, but I know that my grandfather
was not kind to my dad, their only child. As I read the story about Mr.
Wilsey, the father and husband, I was _constantly_ reminded of my grandfather,
directly but more indirectly.

He was 51 years old when I was born, and I spent most of my first six years
with him and my grandmother. At that time, my parents divorced and assigned
full legal custody of me to my grandparents. I grew up there, leaving when I
was 18, and my grandfather was 69, my grandmother 67.

My grandparents were kind to me, but my grandfather was distant. He was
distant with everyone. He had only a single close friend, who died of cancer
in the late 70s. He almost never spoke of what he went through in the war. He
rarely spoke at all. He had a quick wit, and rarely, he would inject acerbic
barbs into conversations.

He took me to some Veterans of Foreign Wars meetings in the early 80s, where I
met and spoke to two other old men, whose names I can not recall. They served
with him in Burma.

Several times, they took me aside and told me things about my grandfather.
Things he would never speak of. How he could fire a clip from his BAR on full
automatic and lethally aim individual clusters of bullets, singly stopping a
Japanese assault.

They told me that he lost, killed, six different ammunition carriers. How a
slug lodged in his femur and extensive fragmentation wounds had no impact on
his ability to slaughter the enemy, day after day, night after night, week
after week, month after month.

I learned how he had received the pile of ribbons and medals that I had caught
a fleeting glimpse of in the attic.

The daily horror, fear and relative certainty of death. Of the horrors they
inflicted, all too often needlessly.

The man who raised me also raised my father. But those 25 years made a big
difference. I'm sure that all of the critical words and quick anger were still
inside him in the 70s and 80s, but inside they stayed.

Though I never heard the word 'love' come from his mouth, I had no doubt that
my grandfather would do anything for me. And he did.

Though notoriously cheap (for instance, we 'harvested' ketchup and mustard
packets from Jack in the Box to refill our supply), my grandfather spent many
hundreds and thousands of dollars to buy me a Color Computer and a TRS-80
Model 100 laptop in the early 80s. Though he had only a 6th grade education,
he knew, in broad strokes, what the future would look like, and the things his
grandson would need to learn.

I speak little of my grandmother here. She was a far more open and loving
person, but she took heavy doses of Valium and related drugs the whole time I
was with them, and after. She and her husband had slept in separate beds since
before I was born. They had no love for each other. They were house-mates,
generally tolerating each others presence, and helping each other as needed.

In many ways, my grandparents were progressive, open-minded people. But they
did not support of "mixed marriage." Though it didn't drive them crazy either.
"Live and let live" was their credo. Yet they were raised in casual, abstract
and always present racism. I heard a lot about how the "Mexicans are taking
all of our jobs", growing up in Southern California.

This isn't all that pleasant, but it is Real Life. Real Life is muddy and
complex and conflicted. And people in the past carried different cultural
burdens than we do today.

After their deaths, I, like so many others, venerated the Greatest Generation.
During their lives, I took my grandparents for granted. But they were patient
with me. They were pretty sure I would grow out of my selfishness and
arrogance, even though they would not live to see it. And they were ok with
that. Their love and support were iron-clad and steadfast.

The Greatest Generation is important. So are the Baby Boomers, and my own
Generation Xers. And my son's Millennials. All important.

And complicated. And conflicted. We will find that every generation is
generally laden with backwards cultural norms.

This article solidifies much that I already knew about the raw, life-long
impact such things have on people. It helps me understand my dad a little
better.

I'm not sure how to end this somewhat emotional ramble, so I'll exhort
everyone to embrace the complications and conflict that make up every person,
of every generation. Understand their personal and cultural history.

~~~
e12e
I think the sad truth is that we keep repeating the mistakes generation after
generation -- every time a little different -- every time the same.

You may or may not find the documentary "Stray Dog"[1] interesting. It opened
my eyes to how much pain is still left in the US from the Vietnam war -- and
how much has been added, and is added with every war since then.

I've been opposed to pretty much every military action by Nato/UN I'm aware of
-- but that does not mean I don't have great sympathy and respect for those
that served in those actions. I strongly believe very few participated with
anything but the best of intentions. Certainly none of the veterans I've
talked to.

[1]
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3263430/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3263430/)

I'm not actually sure I would label is at a good movie as such -- I would
probably have made different editing choices. I get the impression that the
director may have been too close to the material. But I found it _interesting_
\-- and that is perhaps the most important aspect of any documentary.

~~~
sliverstorm
_I 've been opposed to pretty much every military action by Nato/UN I'm aware
of_

Even the Korean War?

~~~
e12e
I wasn't born at the time. But yes. Perhaps more controversially I was opposed
to the handling of Balkan during the 90s.

------
aaron695
It is a shame the New Republic were the ones to get their hands on these
letters rather than someone more reputable.

There was no reason at all to divert form the interesting historical war
component to some sort of shameful generalisation about the racism of the
letter writer.

Especially the implication the language used, which is not appropriate today,
but was commonly used at the time is relevant.

The letter writer spoke his mind, which seemed rare back then. But is brought
down, after years of war and post war atrocities because they spoken openly.

They obviously cared about being prejudiced, which I cannot see being common
at the time.

They New Republic cannot even bothered putting in the proper quote without
comment -

> There was a lengthy screed about his black comrades-in-arms, which began
> with the always troubling disclaimer, “I am NOT prejudiced—whether you
> believe me or not”:

------
kraig911
What I liked most about seeing this is it added a whole new dimension. As it
states so much about what we see in film and writing is about how once the USA
(We) got there how were all super altruistic and what-not. Coming upon a scene
of 40,000 corpses and near death it's obvious the clear right answer is to
help. But the amount of anger and hatred I would have had for the germans when
I got there that to me helping would be to kill every SS officer I could
find... This man went through hell and still spent his life as a doctor after.
Amazing.

------
xenophonf
Words fail me. The horror of what everyone must have experienced in those
places...damned, all of them.

~~~
hydrogen18
It is no longer horrific, but the entire Dachau site still has a strange
nature to it. The original barracks that the prisoners stayed in are gone,
although two reproductions are there. The buildings within the compound are
still intact and have a variety of presentations and artifacts in them. There
are several memorials on site. In general, there are just a bunch of tourists
trudging around onsite nowadays. It is still really weird to stand their and
realize you are vacationing where so many atrocities were committed.

The buildings outside of the fenced compound area were part of the Dachau
site, but are still used today.

~~~
smhg
While I dare to say I'm generally not easily impressed or emotional: after
being just a few minutes on the premises, you can get an idea of what those
poor people had to go through. Just by being there. You don't have to read
much.

I would describe it as the feeling of powerlessness that everything in that
place signifies.

You immediately now you'll never get out (unless they let you, which of course
didn't happen). You couldn't decide _anything_ yourself (eat, sleep,
toilet,...). Might sound like a regular prison, but it's not.

Not that I have any idea what it must have been like of course.

I think it would be somehow wise/responsible if everyone would visit it once.
I wouldn't call it tourism.

------
dicroce
I wonder if the rebellion of the youth in the 60's (in the US) can be seen as
an echo of atrocities our soldiers lived in WWII? Did everyone come home
changed, and cold... and rais a generation that reacted badly to that?

~~~
brazzy
In Germany, the '68 rebellion was in part about not letting their parent and
grandparent generations get away with ignoring the past.

------
notahacker
I'm surprised much of the content of those letters made it past the censors,
even allowing for the war in Europe being over at the time they were sent.

------
e12e
Sad, but not surprising, to see one of the liberators being rather openly
racist in his letters. There's a reason why all countries surrounding Germany
were slow to denounce the Nazi party -- much of the hate they were spreading
was accepted as fact. Not entirely unlike the current fear of the Middle East,
and Muslims.

~~~
api
The idea that all human beings are "equal" in the sense that they deserve
dignity and respect is a modern idea. I'm not aware of any other time in human
history that there's been this sort of universalism among more than a few
philosophers here and there.

Likewise the notion that war is not a good thing seems modern to me. Ancient
philosophers typically extolled the virtues of war. It was really the advent
of mechanized warfare, and especially the a-bomb, that made war so abnormally
destructive that it became something roundly condemned.

~~~
e12e
If by modern you mean "post 1500s" I suppose you're probably right. But eg:
"Heart of Darkness" came out in 1899.

[ed: Perhaps more apropos I came across this:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/1933/mar/28/germany.secondw...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/1933/mar/28/germany.secondworldwar)

"Big fire at Reichstag" Manchester Guardian, February 1933

"The wildest rumours were circulating in Berlin last night, adds Reuter. One
was to the effect that secret orders had been issued to the Nazi Storm
Troopers to create a Bartholomew night on Saturday, when all political
opponents of renown were to be "disposed of."

Although the police asserted the Communists are responsible, some people think
that the fire might have bee started by irresponsible Nazis with the object of
provoking trouble."

[http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1933/mar/21/fromthear...](http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/1933/mar/21/fromthearchive)

"Communists to be interned in Dachau" The Guardian, Tuesday 21 March 1933

The President of the Munich police has informed the press that the first
concentration camp holding 5,000 political prisoners is to be organised within
the next few days near the town of Dachau in Bavaria.

Here, he said, Communists, "Marxists" and Reichsbanner leaders who endangered
the security of the State would be kept in custody. It was impossible to find
room for them in the State prisons, nor was it possible to release them.
Experience had shown, he said, that the moment they were released, they
started their agitation again.

It's hard to shake the similarity to some other terrorists who "cannot be
released" \-- held without any proper trial]

------
jonyt
Under normal circumstances I would consider the treatment of the SS soldiers
described here war crimes. But the men of the SS were and are not deserving of
the protections normally granted to soldiers. For the atrocities that they
committed only the most brutal punishment will suffice.

My dad had a friend who as a partisan fought on the eastern front. Whenever
they captured a German soldier they checked his armpit for the telltale
tattoo. If he had it they would immediately run him over with a tank. I think
that's the most kindly death they could expect in light of their heinous
behavior.

~~~
glibgil
> only the most brutal punishment will suffice

Suffice for what? Only to make you feel better. This is some real magical-
thinking torture porn. Nothing special happens when you kill a person one way
versus another.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Nonsense. The survivors feel differently. That's very real.

~~~
glibgil
It's not "very real". If a survivor knew their captour was shot, run over by a
tank, put in prison immediately or on the run for years, but eventually
captured the survivor would feel about the same amount of resolution as their
personality is disposed to synthesize. Nothing special happens in human
consciousness if the resolution is extra gory.

~~~
themartorana
That is patently incorrect. If it were, horrific methods of execution would
never be imagined or used as deterrent punishments throughout history. The
method of execution can have a profound psychological impact on many different
people in many different ways.

Further, if there was no difference to a victim or survivor between
imprisonment and execution, we wouldn't have a death penalty debate at all.

~~~
glibgil
> deterrent

That's rich. Study up on human psychology. Death and other cruel punishments
are not a deterrent.

