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America's Dachau Lesson

(Israel Hayom) Ariel Bulshtein - On April 29, 1945, U.S. Army soldiers liberated the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau in southern Germany. The horror that confronted the fighters of the 42nd Infantry Division was unforgettable: thousands of corpses of camp prisoners, gas chambers and crematoria, as well as tens of thousands of starved inmates, barely clinging to life. In the hours that followed, Dachau witnessed one of the most justified acts of retribution in 20th-century history: The Americans singled out the SS soldiers from among the surrendering Germans. These were lined up against a wall and then shot and killed, some by American soldiers and others by the camp's liberated prisoners. The United States of 1945 was a healthy society with a healthy military and, above all, a correct moral compass. It distinguished clearly between good and evil. America knew that evil wore SS uniforms. Did America's legal advisors seek to punish the soldiers who killed SS members? Quite the opposite. Col. Charles Decker, a senior legal expert in the U.S. Army at the time, ruled that given what the soldiers had witnessed at Dachau, justice and fairness demanded they not be held personally responsible for their actions, regardless of whether those actions violated international law.
2024-07-14 00:00:00
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