Remagen Germany, 1945

The USA are again a subject of heated debate, this time concerning their treatment of P.O.T.W.A.T’s., or Prisoners Of The War Against Terror. Guantanamo bay prison, in itself a very odd phenomenon for it is located on Cuban territory, manages to keep the media busy even after the decision to close it down has been made. The ideal solution for the base itself, where the prison is located, would be to vacate it entirely and to give the land back to Cuba. And while Obama is at it: maybe abolishing the whole embargo against Cuba is in there too. Why not?

A more serious problem, in relation to the question as to how to end the silly, self righteous harassment of the Cuban neighbours by keeping one of their beaches occupied, is: “Where to go with the prisoners who are still awaiting trial or who need to stay under lock and key because they are genuinely dangerous?”

These P.O.W.’s have one important advantage: the entire world is watching. The best would be to try them and get it over with. Preferably by civilian courts in the USA itself. The solution the USA will come up with, will probable be civilised, compared to some other events in the USA’s belligerent history.

A case in point: a few days ago, I was visiting an ancient friend of mine, who told me a very awkward story. The year was 1945. The place was Remagen, Germany. My friend was around 25 years old then, and had been commandeered to Remagen – from his domicile in Antwerp, Belgium, where he was attending the conservatory – by the USA liberators, who were pushing the German occupiers back to their Reich. The USA troops were moving so fast, that the Germans had no time to retreat properly, and many were taken prisoner by the Americans.

These prisoners posed a logistical problem for the US Army. At some point, they had to be taken out of the area to make way for the liberation effort and my friend was a part of this evacuation. He had to put prisoners on trucks to ship them out of the camps where they were held. After many transports had taken off, there were no more trucks available but still a good amount of P.O.W.’s were left to remove. So what to do? My friend went to his local commander and made note of the fact that he needed more trucks to evacuate the Germans. Could he organise some?

The US commander had different ideas as to how to solve this problem. Instead of organising more trucks, he fetched out a machine gun and gunned down all remaining prisoners, including the sick and the wounded. That was his way of eliminating a logistical issue. Now a bulldozer sufficed to get rid of the unfortunate soldiers by shoving them into their last resting place.

The event above still sits in my friends memory like a block of concrete. When I talked to him about this, 64 years later while sitting at his dining table, his eyes still went moist of sadness, anger, disbelief and horror. He told me that at the time, some of his fellow interns had brought the blatant war-crime they had witnessed to the attention of their superiors, and they themselves had been punished for “telling on an officer”. The responsible USA officer in question remained untouched and unpunished.

My friend also tells me that in WW-II, the American troops were almost inhuman in the way they ravaged the land they conquered (back) on the Germans. They demolished everything in sight and raped all the women they could get their hands on; and as the anecdote above points out, they – at least at some occasions – also killed their P.O.W.’s if it suited them. And I had always thought that this had been an exclusive Russian trait, so thoroughly executed in and around Stalingrad in the year 1943, when the Germans were so badly defeated that it turned the tide on them for the rest of the war.*

So much for the real “historic account” that I had always been told. It is clear again, that history is written by the victors, and my country happened to be in the same ballpark as the Americans, who were already priming the European grounds for a new enemy after the Germans: the Soviet Union. This meant that history on this side of the Rhine told us that the Americans were good, the Germans were bad and the Russians, although brave and fierce warriors, were backwards and brutal. They despised the life of their adversaries as well as the German women, whom they raped in quantities. And they killed off all P.O.W. they captured, with the exception of some very lucky men, who they could better use alive than dead.**

It was only a few days ago that I learned that the Americans did exactly the same thing, be it on a smaller scale.

Back to the Guantanamo prisoners. These guys might be better off that the Germans in the last stages of WW-II. Although one keeps thinking: “What might be kept out of the press and out of the worlds eye?” If torture was permitted under Bush, why not illegal executions? Time will tell, eventually, for some of the 21 year old privates guarding these people, will eventually speak. Even if it will be 70 years later.

In any case, I trust Obama more than I ever trusted Bush. Hopefully, he will understand the “civilised conduct of war” better than his predecessor. Even if the notion itself is a contradiction in terms. Time will, as always, tell.

*) Read more: a personal account of a German P.O.W.

**) See also the debacle at Stalingrad, where the estimated casualties soared up to 850.000 combatants. Of the 91,000 German P.O.W.’s taken at Stalingrad, 27,000 died within weeks and only 5,000 returned to Germany in 1955. The remainder of the P.O.W.s died in Soviet captivity. (Source: Wikipedia)