Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 1944. ANOTHER GERMAN HORROR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 May 1944, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 1944. ANOTHER GERMAN HORROR

reason appears for doubting that the simple truth is embodied in a report by the Stockholm correspondent of the London ‘'Daily Express”—a report based on statements made by British prisoners of war who have escaped from the German prison camp Stalag Luft 3 —that 47 Allied airmen prisoners were murdered by their German guards and not shot, as the Germans falsely alleged, when rushing the gales. The full available facts presumably will be made known by the British Government at ah early date, but the report as it stands is as credible as it is abominable, and entirely in keeping with much that has gone before. On the facts as stated, the Germans have once again committed an atrocious crime and then attempted to conceal their guilt. As recent discoveries in Russia and elsewhere bear witness, they have been doing these same things in various countries throughout the war period and there is every reason to fear that many of their infamies have yet to be brought to light. Nothing could better demonstrale the inability of the German nation even to approximate to the standards of civilised humanity than the murder of Allied airmen now reported. There is no shadow of excuse in the statement that the shootings apparently resulted from a breakdown of German discipline and morale, that the guards at Stalag Luft 3 for months past had behaved like lunatics and that they had been exasperated by frequent attempts to escape. The conditions governing the confinement and treatment of prisoners of war are laid down clearly in international law, to which Germany ostensibly subscribes, and it is of course a primary duty resting on any nation to see to it that those whom it appoints to guard prisoners of war are not allowed “to behave like lunatics.” It may be taken for granted that the British Government and any other Allied governments concerned, having verified the facts, will pledge themselves to every effort to bring to justice those, in high position or low, found to be responsible for the massacre at Stalag Luft 3. Imperatively as this is demanded, it has to be recognised that in this addition to the list of German crimes, infamous as it is, there is nothing new. The deliberate murder of innoceht men, Women and children, accompanied often by bestialities of torture or maltreatment, has had and continues to have a standing place in the war practice of the German nation, under the leadership of Nazi gangsterdoin. It is argued at times that the mass of the German people are not responsible for these revolting crimes, but what evidence is there that any considerable or even appreciable proportion of the German people have protested against atrocities? Reports have emerged at times of a few individual Germans, students and others, being done to death for daring io denounce the vile policy and practice of their leaders, but on the whole the attitude of the German people towards Avar crimes appears to range from active support to brutish or slavish indifference. The “Daily Express” has said that the preliminary reports of the massacre of Allied airmen at Stalag Luft 3 will strike a chill of cold hate through Britain. Even cold hate perhaps is hardly what is called for. There is need above all of an implacable determination, not only that war criminals shall be punished, but that Germany shall be so controlled as to set a period to crimes which will make her name a byword in the continuing history of mankind. A late cablegram reports a British Air Ministry statement that “nothing occurred at Stalag Luft 3 in the nature of the report which has appeared in the Press.” This of course must be accepted. The position awaits full elucidation. It is, however, well established that the Germans have been guilty of many atrocities as vile as those which were alleged to have been committed’ at Stalag Luft 3.