Execution of Black Soldiers

Objective research on factual information regarding German military related warcrimes.
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melda1
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Execution of Black Soldiers

Post by melda1 »

A few years ago I met an American Army nurse, female, who’d landed in Normandy shortly after the invasion. She has since died, but she told me a story I’d not come across before and I wonder if anyone else has heard it or knows how to verify it.
At some point (she couldn’t recall where in France or exactly when this happened) her field hospital was overrun by the Germans and they found themselves in the hands of the SS. There were also a number of black soldiers captured and the SS marched them all into the woods where an officer lined up the blacks on one side, lectured the hospital staff on racial topics and had them watch while they shot the blacks. She was terrified that they were going to be next but no, they were left at their hospital area and soon recaptured by the Americans. Anyone heard about this incident?
Thanks!
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Landwacht
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

Post by Landwacht »

I've heard more on similar incidents happening. SS regiments held themselves as the ultimate Übermensch. Many SS regiments were not
so "gent's like" with regards to POW's let allone to Black POW's. Manny of them got shot as did other colloured captured army men.
phylo_roadking
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

Post by phylo_roadking »

Landwacht, check out the rules around posting in this section - and beware generalisations...
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

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I think the one of the possible reasons that black American soldiers were massacred is because of the Germans had bad experience during the French occupation of Saar in the 1920s where most of the French occupation troops were black (resulting in a generation of the so-called Rhineland Bastards, offspring of white German women with black African males).

However the treatment of the blacks by the Germans could be contradictory. Massacre of French black troops happened during the Battle of France as well as black American troops during the Ardennes offensive. Jesse Owens himself stated that he received better treatment while he was in Germany than in USA. Hans J. Mossaquoi, a black German mentioned that he was treated curiously but at times he feared for his life during the era of Third Reich

Askaris who served with von Lettow-Vorbeck German-African forces during WW1 were viewed as loyal and brave soldiers by the Germans (there is an interesting anecdote in the 1960s where the German government decided to award pensions to Askari veterans of WW1. However most of the Askaris were illiterate and does not have any documentation or record of being a soldier under Lettow-Vorbeck. Therefore, several German WW1 veterans who served in Africa were asked to give German military commands [e.g. stillegestanden!] of WW1 to the Askaris. Those who understand and performed correctly on those German command were confirmed as Askari soldiers and therefore was awarded pensions. One Askari even turned up with his WW1 German rifle to the astonishment of the German commission!). Hans-Joachim Marseille had an African batman. A couple Carribean blacks served in the LVF (one even tried to enlist in the Charlemagne SS Division in 1944 and was turned down!). A French black served as a Gestapo/SD agent in France if I am not mistaken.

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Landwacht
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

Post by Landwacht »

phylo_roadking wrote:Landwacht, check out the rules around posting in this section - and beware generalisations...
:?: I said Many , not all. Regarding POW treatment, you could check out paragraphs in several literature's. Recently read in "Grebbenlinie 1940" by Mr. E.H. Bongers. It tells on official records in situations with SS regiment Standarte "Der Fuhrer". And that was just at the start of it all.
I don't think I have to recall the Polisch invasion as well here... I think, many but NOT ALL SS regiments had a disregard of the Geneva conventions.
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

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SS regiments held themselves as the ultimate Übermensch. Many SS regiments were not
so "gent's like" with regards to POW's let allone to Black POW's. Manny of them got shot as did other colloured captured army men.
I don't think I have to recall the Polisch invasion as well here... I think, many but NOT ALL SS regiments had a disregard of the Geneva conventions
Except we're not talking here about POLAND.

All participants, take note;
Please note when discussing threads and posts in this section that it has always been a standard on the forum that when discussions on war crimes arise, the sins or not of one side are NOT measured against or excused by those of the other. What constitutes a "war crime" is a breach of the various treaties defining the laws of warfare, treatment of non-combatants, destruction of property, treatment of POWS, etc. - or the commonly-held "customs of war" underpinning them...what does NOT make an action a "war crime" is that the other side did it first or worse. Each war crime or alledged war crime stands on its own "merits" and circumstances - and not in comparison with or measured against any other by degree.
We are discussing NORMANDY in 1944.
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Landwacht
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

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I can see your point here Admin :up:
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

Post by militaria7 »

I only recently joined this site and am amazed at the vast amount of info I am picking up. I stumbled onto this thread and it peaked my interest as I have known for some time about one massacre of black soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge. And, coincidentally, a newspaper article was printed last December in our Tulsa World newspaper. Here's the article....it's easier to post it than it is to give an overview! I would point out the paragraph talking about the autopsy report on the bodies....

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article. ... rchive=yes

FORT GIBSON — A tombstone can hardly tell the story of one person's life.

If it could, what would it say for just one day of Mager Bradley's life, the day he was murdered by the Nazi SS at the outset of the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium 65 years ago?

Bradley is buried in section 6, grave 2698-E at the Fort Gibson National Cemetery.

Chiseled into white stone, his gravestone simply reads: Mager Bradley, Mississippi, Cpl, Field Arty, World War II, April 21 1917, December 17 1944.

Bradley was a corporal with the all-black 333rd Field Artillery Battalion, which was stationed and trained at nearby Camp Gruber before heading to Europe in 1944.

At 27 years old, he and 10 other black soldiers with the battalion were captured by Germans with the 1st SS Panzer Division at Wereth, a small farming village in southeastern Belgium.

On that frigid Dec. 17, the 11 were marched to a frozen field, where they were butchered by troops bent on amusing themselves with the agony of others.

Earlier that day, 10 miles northwest of Wereth, at a crossroad near Malmedy, the most infamous massacre during the Battle of the Bulge occurred. More than 80 U.S. troops were captured by the same Nazi division and executed in an open field.

But unlike at Malmedy, where the American troops were gunned down, the "Wereth 11," as they have come to be known, were maimed and tortured to death.

An autopsy report on the 11 is ghastly: broken legs and arms, jaws shattered, fingers severed, bayonet wounds to the face and body and bullet wounds designed to inflict anguish rather than death.

Unlike at Malmedy, where those responsible were brought to justice, the Germans who perpetrated the horror at Wereth were never found.

The U.S. military investigated the Wereth killings but filed away its investigation in 1948. The file remained buried for five decades.

"It is a shame on our government for not performing the same as it did for Malmedy," said Christian de Marcken, a Belgian-American living in Paxton, Mass.

De Marcken, who has chronicled the Wereth massacre, is convinced not enough effort was put into capturing the SS troops responsible.

What de Marcken finds shameful is none of the 11 received any medals until recent years.

De Marcken has visited Wereth and talked to many people who remember that night. He credits the Belgians with drawing American attention to the massacre.

A granite memorial to the 11 — said to be the only memorial in Europe to the sacrifices of black American troops — was erected, largely due to the efforts of Belgians.

That memorial was formally recognized in a 2004 ceremony attended by U.S. troops. Every year, American troops commemorate the Wereth 11 at that spot, de Marcken said.

De Marcken said it was Herman Langer, whose parents tried to shelter the 11, who started the drive in 1994 to create a monument.

It was on the second day of the Battle of the Bulge when the 11, faced with an onslaught of Germans, became separated from their unit and found their way to the home of Mathius and Maria Langer, de Marcken said.

The couple took the shivering soldiers into their home and were preparing to feed them when Nazi troops arrived after being alerted by a German sympathizer.

The 11 were forced outside and were made to sit on an icy road for two hours before they were marched into a field and murdered.

Their bodies, covered by ensuing snowstorms, remained at that spot for two months until villagers notified the U.S. Army about the massacre, de Marcken said.

In a 2008 trip to Wereth, de Marcken said, he met with a tearful Tina Heinrich-Langer, who was a teenager when the 11 came to her family's home.

The woman told him the soldiers offered the family a bar of soap, something the family hadn't seen since the start of the war.

"She was crying when she told me that," de Marcken said. "She cried because the family used the soap and now she doesn't have anything to connect her to those brave soldiers."

Seven of the dead are buried at the U.S. Military Cemetery at Henri-Chapelle, Liege, Belguim. The others were returned to the United States for burial.

Curiously, Bradley was not buried at Fort Gibson until Dec. 15, 1947 — three years after he was killed, according to cemetery records.

Dr. Norman Lichtenfeld of Mobile, Ala., has done extensive research into the massacre and noted that the 11 were buried in temporary graves in Europe until 1947, when their families were contacted about permanent burial options.

Not much is known about Bradley since none of his next of kin could be found in Mississippi or Oklahoma.

What is known is that he was a native of Bolivar County, Miss., and enlisted there in the Army in April 1941.

Muskogee County records show he was married in Muskogee on Dec. 2, 1943, to Eva Mae James, 20, of Okmulgee, while he was in training at Camp Gruber.

Lichtenfeld said it was Bradley's widow who opted for his burial in Oklahoma.
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PA. Dutchman
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

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Moderator Deletion.

PA Dutchman - please note my post two above this.
Sincerely yours,
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

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Hans
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

Post by Hans »

I don't see that executing black soldiers is in anyway a greater or lesser crime than executing anyone else. Why not just say "American soldiers". One should bear in mind that America also classed its coloured soldiers as "Untermenschen" at this time and for some time thereafter. Mores the pity.

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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

Post by lwd »

Hans wrote:I don't see that executing black soldiers is in anyway a greater or lesser crime than executing anyone else. Why not just say "American soldiers".
There is something in what you say but if they were murdered because they were black rather than because they were Americans it makes it a somewhat different crime. It's still murder but part of the genocidal pattern of the Nazi regime rather than a crime of passion or expediancy.
One should bear in mind that America also classed its coloured soldiers as "Untermenschen" at this time and for some time thereafter.
Source please.
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Re: Execution of Black Soldiers

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