Читать книгу German Atrocities: An Official Investigation - J. H. Morgan - Страница 25

This question of the culpability of the German people, civilians and soldiers in the ranks, as distinct from the German Government, is one of supreme importance, and I would like to draw the reader’s attention to the mass of unpublished evidence (from which some selections are given in Part VI. of the Documentary Chapter of this book) placed at my disposal by the Russian Embassy. In addition to the documents I have printed in that chapter—I refer the reader to No. 7 in particular—I will here quote the following unpublished deposition as to the conduct of the German guards in a prison camp. These barbarities, it should be remembered, were not done in the heat of action, but represent the leisurely amusement of guards whose only provocation was the helplessness of the famished men in their charge.

“In their leisure moments the German soldiers amused themselves with practical joking at the expense of the prisoners. They announced that an extra portion of food would be given out, and when the Russians hurried to the kitchen, a whole pack of dogs were let loose on them. The animals flew at the prisoners and dispersed them in all directions, while the Germans looked on and roared with laughter. Sometimes the prisoners were offered an extra ladle of soup, or piece of bread if they would expose their backs to a certain number of blows with a whip. Our hungry and tormented soldiers often bought an extra piece of bread at this price, and it was thrown to them as if they had been dogs.”

The Germans appear in the case of the Russian, as in that of the British, Belgian, and French prisoners, to have taken a malignant and bestial delight in outraging their feelings of self-respect, and men were herded together day and night in cattle-trucks deep in manure, and forced to perform their natural functions where they stood, packed together so close that they could not sit and dared not lie down. At each station they were exhibited like a travelling menagerie to the curiosity and insult of the populace. The quality of mercy was not shown even where one might most expect to find it, namely, at the hands of the German surgeons and nurses who wore the Red Cross. Here is the deposition of Vasili Tretiakov:

“Having received no food for two days, the Russian prisoners, who fully expected to get some bread at this station, were gazing with hungry and longing looks into the distance, when they saw women dressed as Sisters of Mercy distributing bread and sausages to the German soldiers. One of these Sisters went up to the truck in which I was standing, and a Russian soldier at the door stretched out his hand for something to eat, but the woman simply struck it and smeared the soldier’s face with a piece of sausage. She then called all the prisoners ‘Russian swine’ and went away from the side of the train.”