May 29, 1996
"Vilification of a Nation
During World War I, in order to bolster support for the war effort, the British public was inundated with stories of atrocities allegedly committed by the 'barbarous Hun'. There were 'eye witness' reports of the bayonetting of Belgian babies, the crucifixion of Allied prisoners and the boiling of soldiers' corpses to make soap.
Several years after the war, a commission was established by the British Government to investigate the charges. The commission found the stories to be untrue.
After World War II, there was no such impartial investigation. Instead, the anti-German propaganda was further embellished and intensified. Far from being exposed as fraudulent, the atrocity stories were given credence through repetition and the Nuremberg Trials (described by one prominent American jurist at the time as 'nothing more than a high class lynching party'). In order to conceal the truth, hearsay was accepted as 'evidence', confessions were obtained through brutal torture and trickery, critical documents were withheld from the defense, effective cross-examination was not permitted and the basic principles of Western justice violated in order to gain convictions.
The orchestrated Trials became an instrument of vengeance for the viciously unscrupulous refugees from Naziism who constituted most of the staff. The judges were all drawn from the ranks of the victors, prompting a prominent anti-Nazi German to comment that 'only God can save him who is judged by his accusers'.
Some day, of there is indeed a God in Heaven, the truth about the origin and events of World War II will emerge. It will not be a happy day for the diabolical schemers who defamed the German nation and contrived the fratricide among Christians so serve their own selfish purposes. It will however be a happy day for mankind, and Germans will no longer need to apologize for doing the right thing."
This is a man who once served proudly in the Canadian Air Force, fighting
against Germany, engaged in what he thought to be a just and righteous
war. There aren't many like him with the courage to say: "We were
wrong."
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
(used before but as never before apropos): "An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted."
(Arthur Miller)