BKKanalist Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 The 45th regiment of the US Army was using a gold swastika on a red patch as their insignia. This was later replaced by the current thunderbird logo on this page http://www.45thdivision.org/history.htm as it was considered uncool to have Americans with Oklahoma Indian tribe swastikas fighting Germans. I cannot find a picture of the old swastika logo but I actually have one of them from a relative. Units from all over the army were merged into this group. Some units, like the California units that were merged into them, had older uniforms and insignia throughout the war. The reason I am posting this is this link: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/DachauLiberation/SoldiersKilled.html When this regiment arrived at Dachau they executed quite some numbers of SS guards who had planned to surrender. Some of the Americans who shot these SS guards were wearing insignia with swastikas on them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 My understanding is that the camp guards had sensibly fled before the American advance. The Germans and Hungarians that remained were battle casualties from the eastern front who had just arrived at the camp. Thus the valiant GIs executed men who had had nothing to do with the atrocities. As your link says, "What Lt. Walsh and the men of I company did not know was that the SS training camp and garrison was completely separate from the Dachau concentration camp." My father several times mentioned to me that he knew of things he did not like and didn't want to talk about. I presume he was talking about the shooting of German prisoners by American infantry during the Battle of the Bulge. (My dad was artillery and didn't have a high opinion of the infantry. I was engineers and agree with him.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gadfly Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 << Jufer's court-appointed lawyer did not attend the sentencing >> Sounds typical. Putting aside the whole issue of the underlying crime (which I am not going to discuss), this is typical and, in some ways, even more disturbing if you believe the rule of law is important. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BKKanalist Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 Can't find a picture of the patch. Can't find the patch to take a picture. http://www.45thdivisionmuseum.com/History/SwastikaToThunderbird.html What I have always been told is that they were sure they were walking into a trap. There had been other times when German soldiers waived white surrender flags and then started shooting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 There is no trap when you line up unarmed men and shoot them down with machine guns. But a former WWII American infantryman once told me his unit would not take SS prisoners. They marched captured Wehrmacht soldiers to the rear, but shot the SS on the spot. Seems to have been a fairly common mentality, though it is seldom mentioned in the history books. And remember that in the last year or so of the war young men were conscripted into the SS. They had no say in the matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BKKanalist Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 No question Mac. This was about payback. What I have been told is that the US soldiers were sure they were going to be ambushed and very pumped up. The fact that the Germans were well fed and the inmates literally starved pissed them off. And a high percentage of the German soldiers were officers and they hated the officers far more than the regular soldiers. Not trying to justify anything...I wasn't born then. The only reason I posted this was the irony of the swastika being worn by some US soldiers shooting Nazis at Dachau. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 Did you see the link I posted some time ago about Jewish Nazis? If not, I'll dig it up again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BKKanalist Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 Please do. The strange, weird and unusual aspects of history are the ones that interest me the most. I guess I am like that with sex as well........... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 Well, they weren't necessarily Nazis, but they did serve under Hitler: http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu/righit.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mentors Posted March 31, 2007 Report Share Posted March 31, 2007 interesting to see how this topic going on, but what in heaven has the stupid poor Swiss Guy to do with all this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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