Innocent
executedDoing my reading on the history of German war crimes,
German war criminals and their adjudication by the
victors after World War II, I came across a most
interesting passage. In November 1945, seven officers of
the German Wehrmacht (and I think it is reasonable to
mention their names -- K.H. Strueffling, H. Remlinger,
E. Böhom, E. Sommerfeld, H. Jannike, E. Skotki
and E. Geherer) were tried by a court of the
victorious allies, the Americans, the English, the French
and the Russians. They were condemned to death for war
crimes and subsequently hanged.
Three more were tried on the same charges (E.P.
Vogel, F. Wiese, A. Diere), received sentences of 20
years of hard labor, were turned over to the Russians and
never heard of again.
Most
interesting about this particular war trial is the
charge. The officers were charged and hanged for
having shot thousands of Polish officers in the forest
of Katyn after the defeat of Poland in 1939.
Now, with glasnost and all, it has been officially
established and admitted by the Russians themselves that
the murder of thousands of the gallant Polish officer
corps in the forest near Katyn was committed by the
bolsheviks of Stalin, not by the murderous Nazis, years
before the German army invaded. The poor above-mentioned
soldiers never got near the scene of the crime.
What evidence was used to hang these innocent
soldiers? Who fabricated the "facts" that convinced the
court that these men were guilty? Murderers? What do the
judges, if they are still alive, have to say for
themselves? What of the prosecutors? What were these
people hanged for?
H. Famira
Professor of German
Concordia University
Montreal
write
to David Irving