 |
| The graves of the slain German soldiers at Lippach |
From the series, “Corrections to the history of our Time – “The Great Wendig”, Volume 2, page 252. Published by Grabert Verlag, D-72066. Tübingen, PO.Box 1629, Germany
On Sunday 22 April, American tanks, coming from the north rolled in and began firing at the village. The defending German soldiers saw the futility of their endeavors, to resist against the might of tanks and the troops retreated southward. The chronicler wrote that in this retreat 36 soldiers ''fell''. The word ''fell'' does not correctly describe the true circumstances, as most of them were murdered by the American soldiers as was evidenced later.
Eyewitnesses from Lippach reported that around 13 o'clock the Americans penetrated into the village and not all German soldiers managed to retreat in time. Some of the German soldiers tried to escape via the gardens, in which only a few succeeded. One of these men was shot dead while fleeing, another was taken prisoner. The following events were observed by the inhabitants of the village: the soldier was brutally beaten at his being taken prisoner, so that he collapsed several times. When he could no longer get up, his skull was smashed with a rifle butt and afterward a side gun was shot through his breast with such force that it went right through his body and lodged into the soil.
In the afternoon, at 16 o'clock, about 20 to 25 drunken black soldiers drove six young German soldiers in front of them, with howling and music accompaniment. They were chased with raised hands through the village street toward the cemetery. An eyewitness wrote, that they were occasionally driven into the ditches by the side of the streets, from which they lifted themselves with great effort, bashed and bloodied. Where the cemetery reaches the place where the roads cross, the Americans fired several times into the air and smashed the skull of the six German soldiers. The dead were secured the next day. They each had a smashed-in skull, but no shotgun wounds.
In house no. 51, belonging to a farmer two captured soldiers were led into the farmer's barn by the drunken soldiers. They were placed on top of the table of the circular saw with the intention to saw them asunder while alive. They did not succeed in this because of electrical failure, so the guards simply shot the two Germans to pieces. One of them died a few hours later, the other was thought to be dead and was thrown behind the hedge of the building. He was found there several hours later, with many shotgun wounds to his body and was patched up scantily. According to the eye-witness of a woman in Lippach, a black American officer caused the severely wounded man to be transported to a hospital the following day.
Around evening the US troops left the village, except for a few soldiers, including the already mentioned officer. This officer caused the dead to be gathered up and buried. On the sheep meadow were found another 10 German soldiers, none of whom carried a weapon, but half of them were shot down with a shot to the head. At the exit of the village, at the road to Baldern, were another four unarmed German soldiers were found in a field, many meters distance from their defense positions. Their weapons were still in place, the soldiers had been shot from behind.
To give the complete picture, it has to be reported, that on this Sunday, 22 April 1945, about 20 women between the ages of 17 and 40 were raped by the members of the US troops. Some of them were even pregnant women. These rapes, together with the thirty six dead German soldiers, some of whom were brutally murdered, were hushed up for most of several decades.
The above mentioned happening had an aftermath: „Pershing-General Haddock visits massacre- grave“ said the local headlines in August 1986. This general, commander of the US-Pershing unit in Europe had heard of this case and had researched into it in the USA. The facts are without a doubt correct, yet a court case against the US soldiers never took place“, (Frankfurter Rundschau“, 16. August 1986). General Haddock expressed his regret about the events in 1945. These kinds of excesses did unfortunately take place in every war, the mis-deeds regrettably could not be reversed. But he could only, past the graves, beg for friendship.
So far so good – if it had been German soldiers they would have received the death penalty by the Allied's „revenge justice“; American soldiers were and are not taken to account. And the German Television shows by and large only Germans to be the criminals, even when historical truth needs to be twisted.
Source: http://www.thenewsturmer.com/CorrectiontoWWIIhistory/The_massacre_of_Lippach.htm
