I agree.by BlackCat1982
Whilst trying to be objective and see this in the context of the period I still find it depressing that he did not receive what he had served up to his victims and have to content myself with the hope that he never had a days peace for the rest of his life. Small consolation but I like the idea of him being nervous at every knock on the door or unusual sound in the night!
Regards
Mark
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
I hope his victims faces haunted him every night of his life on Earth.
He looks a mean B**tard. "court ruled that he had been coerced into these acts by superiors." Pathetic, the old "obeying orders" defence. The West German judges during the 1960s & "70's were still mostly carryovers appointed during the Third Reich. And of course they wouldn't send German defendants to Poland to face trial.
Gent's,
I do take things like this badly, being a Serving member of the Armed Forces I have a definite 'Moral Compass' which will always mean that I detest such actions however this is augmented by the following:
On 21 Feb 1945, 158 Squadron RAF Flying Halifax III's set out on a bombing run from RAF Lissett, Yorkshire targeting the Railway station in Worms Germany. My father had been shot down over Holland by AA fire on the 17th Feb and had arrived back in Lissett in time to be told to assemble a reserve crew for the raid. He acted as bomb aimer that night even though he was a qualified pilot and navigator.
As his middle name was not 'Lucky' he met with a JU 88 that in his words, "Unzipped us from tail to nose". The bail out command was given immediately, (when the aircraft is burning around you apparently it is not really needed!) and my father for the second time in a week tried his hand at parachuting. On landing he discovered that the local Volksturm were no where near as agreeable as the Dutch and Canadians who found him the first time and he was given a sound beating and then sent to a POW camp in Bavaria.
His rear gunner was however Air/Gnr: Sgt. Cyril 'Lofty' William Sibley 1898606 who had gone out earlier than my father and landed in a town named Dirmstein. he was initially treated well by a local but the head of the Volksturm who was also the the town Gruppenleiter, Adolf Wolfert, arrived and after a short time with the assistance of two policemen Georg Hartleb and Heinrich Kress took Sgt Sibley a short distance to the railway station and summarily murdered him. Wolfert and Hartleb were executed for their crimes and Kress got 10 years in prison in 1946 in Hameln.
So to cut a short story long, it was not until I had served a good 10 years + before my father told me the story, but the nicest kindest gentleman i have ever known was to say the least 'still angry' about the whole incident. He said no more about the incident to his dying day, (with one exception that I will not cover) but likewise this is the first time I have recounted any of our families proud history of service let alone this tale.
An indication of the type of family I grew up in was that every Christmas when I was home I attended the family party, there in a separate room were the members who had served, no other was allowed and the range covered was two world wars and most of the modern conflicts since the 1970's, not bad for five of us!
Thank you for putting up with this. It does help me in a small measure with some of the baggage I have been carrying. If anyone is interested the following website has further details of the incident.
158 Squadron Halifax III MZ351 NP-X Fl/Sgt. Widdowson, RAF Lissett, Dirmstein, Germany
100 thousand people were imprisoned in Pawiak Prison in Warsaw. 37 thousand of these were murdered, and unspeakable tortures were performed on people, really medieval things.
Polish Underground got to take out some of the infamous murderers/torturers in 1943 : Franz Burkl, Karl Riemann and Adolf Wagner were some of the worst ones.
Germans blew up the Pawiak prison in August 1944 during Warsaw Uprising.
And after the War not one of these animals who stayed alive got convicted, except one , Ludwig Hahn who got 12 years (a joke) .....
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