Sometimes the way war criminals are regarded depends on the era in which we live.
In a span of 75 years, Americans had hoped to come closer to the founding ideals.
Our standards should not have gone downward.
At the end of World War II, the American high command finally discovered what had happened to 15 US soldiers who had been captured by Germans in Italy.
The Americans had been sent on a mission behind enemy lines to destroy an important railroad tunnel. But the mission failed and they were captured by combined Italian and German forces. General Anton Dostler ordered that they be executed as spies.
The local German commander protested. They weren’t spies. The soldiers were not dressed in civilian clothes. They all wore United States military uniforms. They did not even carry any clothing other than the uniforms they were wearing. International law was well established. You cannot execute enemy soldiers as spies if they wear the uniforms of their own armed forces.
General Dostler issued the order in print, sending an official telegram.
Execute the commando team.
The local German commander tried again. Could the executions at least be delayed until the order could be reviewed?
A member of Dostler’s staff refused to sign the execution order. Executing captured prisoners would violate 2 important international conventions, as well as international law established over hundreds of years. The staff member was dismissed for insubordination.
General Dostler sent a second telegram. Carry out the executions. The local commander tried to reach the General by telephone, then tried again. Dostler refused to take the calls.
And so, 15 members of the United States Army were executed and buried in Italy in a mass grave.
Only a few Nazi war criminals were ever put on trial in Italy. Anton Dostler was an exception. After the war was over, a year after the executions, he was put on trial.
His defense was not unusual at the time. Adolf Hitler had issued an explicit command. Captives would be killed if keeping them prisoner would be a burden. Commandos were to be killed in all cases. So General Dostler was just following orders.
It didn’t fly.
Dostler was executed by firing squad on December 1, 1945. From a scratchy news reel at the time, complete with dramatic music:
General Dostler, who ordered the death of fifteen captured Americans in uniform, must pay for his crime like any murderer.
Before the black hood was placed over his head, just before the shots were fired, he reportedly shouted “Long live Germany!”
There will always be violations of law. That includes international law. If there were not, enforcement would not be necessary. Uniformed soldiers, when captured, have generally been spared. But there have been exceptions. Some of those exceptions occurred on US soil.
During the Civil War, Confederate troops led by General Nathan Bedford Forrest captured a minor post in Tennessee, Fort Pillow. Many of the defending Union soldiers were black. The executions of captured black soldiers was massive. 80% were killed after the battle was over. White officers who had commanded black troops were all killed. Many of the white soldiers who had fought alongside their black comrades were also killed, although 60% survived as prisoners.
Early reports indicated that black women and children in the fort were also rounded up and killed.
After the war, there were investigations into what had become known as the Pillow Fort Massacre.
Apologists for General Nathan Bedford Forrest first denied that that a massacre had happened at all. But the evidence was massive. How else to explain the bodies and testimony from witnesses? In later years, loyalists among Confederate soldiers tested a different narrative. Forrest and his commanders had tried to stop the violence. The problem was that contemporaneous accounts ran counter to that.
One confederate sergeant wrote to his sister about what was happening that day.
The fort turned out to be a great slaughter pen. Blood, human blood stood about in pools and brains could have been gathered up in any quantity. I with several others tried to stop the butchery and at one time had partially succeeded but Gen. Forrest ordered them shot down like dogs and the carnage continued. Finally our men became sick of blood and the firing ceased.
Years later, Confederate General James Chalmers, talked about his and Forrest’s efforts to stop the executions. The problem, once again, was his account soon after the battle, rejoiced in the killings. The massacre, in his earlier words:
…had taught the mongrel garrison of blacks and renegades a lesson long to be remembered.
General Chalmers explained to reporters that Confederate troops were simply following orders, that it was the policy of the Confederate government to execute black soldiers.
General Nathan Bedford Forrest himself sent a dispatch to the Confederate command three days after the massacre, commenting on the killings:
The river was dyed with the blood of the slaughtered for 200 yards.
He thought he and his troops had, perhaps, helped the cause beyond the battle itself.
It is hoped that these facts will demonstrate to the Northern people that Negro soldiers cannot cope with Southerners.
General Nathan Bedford Forrest went on to help found the Ku Klux Klan, becoming its first Grand Wizard.
History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes parallels diverge.
There are no statues of General Anton Dostler in Germany, where he rests in an isolated grave in a military cemetery. There are no memorials in Italy, where he ordered the executions of 15 American soldiers. No-one argues that history would be served by honoring him.
On the other hand:
By an 11 to 5 vote in a state legislative committee on June 9, 2020, a beautiful golden colored sculpture of Nathan Bedford Forest remains today in a place of honor in the Tennessee Capitol Rotunda.
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I find your story about General Anton Dostler suspect. If there is no statue of him, how can we even be sure that he ever existed? That is, after all, our only method of recording history — and what a good one it is! Everything one needs to know about Forrest, for example, is written there on his silver, photorealistic face. Looking upon it, I feel as though I could write his biography on the spot, whatever “writing” and “biography” mean.
It’s no surprise that the commies want to tear it down. These are the same people who think that flag burning should be legal, as if countries could somehow exist independently of their flags! They’re the same people who take the knee during the anthem, as if they get to have opinions and decide what their own gestures mean!
You just can’t fix stupid.
The Confederacy was systemic racism to the extreme. The Confederate constitution provided that slavery could never be prohibited by law. This fact alone confirms the Civil War was about preserving slavery.
It became Confederate policy to kill captured white union officers for leading Black soldiers. Captured Black soldiers that survived immediate execution would be made slaves, even the freemen in uniform.
Today, as throughout its history, the Confederate flag is nothing but a symbol of racism and treason.
The racism behind slavery and the eradication and slaughter of Native Americans represents America’s original sin. The unresolved consequences are still tearing our nation apart, infecting our politics, and poisoning our culture.