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Show Do Not Forget Atrocities The people of the United States should not forget established atrocities, committed by the Nazis Na-zis in the late war, including the murder of 260 American prisoners prison-ers of war captured in the Ardennes Ar-dennes offensive of December, 1944. Testimony at the trial of three officers and six enlisted men of a German Elite Division reveals that they had been ordered to take no prisoners and that company com-pany commanders were told, just before the offensive began, that the "resistance of the enemy will be broken with brutality the end justifies the means." It is interesting to note that one German lieutenant admitted that under orders, he told his men not to take prisoners but warned them "not to shoot at prisoners wfto wave their steel helmets." This, he said, was a precaution against shooting Germans Ger-mans who wore American uniforms uni-forms and who had been instructed in-structed to wave their helmets if captured.. Earlier the men had been instructed to wear American Ameri-can uniforms and use American vehicles to confuse other Americans. Ameri-cans. There may be some people in the United States who think, since peace has come to the earth, that the. United States should forgive and forget those who murdered her sons. We do not belong to this group. It is very essential, in our opinion, that the United States demonstrate demon-strate completely and determinedly, deter-minedly, that any, nation which mistreats American fighting men in war, will be required to pay the price for brutality. It is not possible for us to protect our men in combat during dur-ing a war, when they fall into the hands of the enemy, but every fighting man of the United States should know, when he goes into battle, now or in the future, that if he is mistreated or unjustly dealt with, that the : power and strength of his coun- j try will be used to the fullest extent to exact justice from those who unjustly take his life. There is no desire whatever to execute vengeance upon individuals, individ-uals, regardless of their depravity, depravi-ty, but there must exist a burning burn-ing desire to serve effective notice no-tice upon all peoples that Americans, Ameri-cans, who become prisoners during dur-ing a conflict, must be treated according to the rules of international inter-national warfare and that, when the struggle is over, the United States, as a nation, will not consider con-sider it ended until those proven guilty pay the proper penalty for their crimes. |