GERMANS WE MUST HANG.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7752, 22 July 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

GERMANS WE MUST HANG.

''HAT ENERk NATION DOES TO GAOLERS WHO .Ml HDICK THEIR PRISONERS. M lion this war ends, says a London 1 paper, and the day of reckoning comes, • no doubt many Hun criminals will escape their just deserts. In tho joy ot peace aav shall be magnanimous. Not j all will hang wJio deserve banging. But there arc two Germans that neither England nor Russia will ever i consent to pardon. These are Genera! A’on Davtf.il and Dr. Asheubaoh, commandant and the medical officer respectively who Avere in charge of the German prison camp of Wittenberg. J licse two .shall assuredly swng. For such is the law and the vengeunc# < t' nations. When Grant accepted the surrender oi the Confederate General Lee under the historic apple-: re in Appomatov Courtyard at the cie.-e ol the American Civil War. bee, !iic t . the chivalrous Southerner he was, pleaded for an amnesty. ‘'None shall he molested,” promised Grant, “saAAe only on? man. He must, die. “And h s name! ,; " queried Leo. ‘ That I knew mot,” answered Gran'. “But T mean t.ie man. whoever ho may prove to ho, who has had charge of our prisoners at Andersonville.” STARVED AND TORTURED THE PRISONERS. And as Grant arid, so it was. Andersonvjilio was the Wittenberg of Liu Southern American States. The commandant of that prison camp starved the Northern prisoners, flogged them, tortured them, shot them, allowed them to die of preventable disease, just as the commandant of the Black Hole ol \\ ittenberg flogged and tortured and shot, and permitted to perish of typhus, the unfortunates under his Tho name of the mail responsible for tho Andersonville horrors was, as we have seen, not oven known to General Grant when he made up his mind to have him hanged. But lie was soon run to earth. And who do you think he turned out to me? Not a Southerner. Not an American even. But a German : hv name Carl Wirz. The brute fought lard for his life. The hyphenated Americans of those days subscribed largo sums of money for his defence. He was given a long trial. But n the end lie was found guilty, and hanged on November 10th, 1865, just seven months after Lee’s surrender ended the Avar. Wirz Avas the on/? and only criminal' oxecuted after the conclusion of tho A\ar hy tho North for crimes cimnutted during that terrible conflict. It is for us to see that certainly not fewer than two are hanged— Dasscl and Ascltenbaeh. Doubtless there are others who rhely deserve hanging, many others; hut of these two av c must make sure. THE BLACK HOLE OF WURTEMBERG. ihore are pWity of precedents for our acting in this manner. The torture of hapless prisoners of war hr«s always been accounted as one of tho vilest ot crimes, and as calling for most condign punishment. We can .even, if we like, cite the Hun s own example, for after the war between Prussia and Austria in 1886 tho Prussians tried hy court-martial, and promptly hanged, the Austrian Colonel Vogel for alleged cruelty to their prisoners of Avar at Neubrunn. And Vog.el, even hy the Prussians own showing, had not committed one-m Girth part of the abominations that have been proved against tho unspeakable Das pel and the iron-cross-bedecked A sell en bach. Those avlio wish to know full details of their brutality should get a copy of tho official report, entitled “The Horrors of Wittenberg.” Wo Britons have ever shown ourselves merciful to fallen foes, but we promptly put to death Surajah Dowlah. caused the tragedy of the Black Hole of the young Nawab of Bengal, for having Calcutta. And it is doubtful if even that ghastly business—and even if we accent the ordinary published account of it as being strictly accurate—exceedin the Wittenberg black ho.!e. Cer,od. in horror some of the worst da vs tainly the sum total of the horrors perpetrated there exceeded by a thousandfold those enacted in the one short. Indian night in the Calcutta prison.