When Senator Joe McCarthy Defended Nazis

[Zorro]

In a nearly forgotten episode, the Wisconsin firebrand sided with the Germany military in a war crimes trial, raising questions about his anti-Semitism

Annihilate the enemy. That was Adolf Hitler’s standing order to his elite Waffen-SS as the Wehrmacht sought to break the Allies’ tightening grip in late 1944 by crashing through enemy lines in an audacious counteroffensive that would become known as the Battle of the Bulge. The Führer’s edict was enforced in the ice-encrusted fields outside the Belgian city of Malmedy. On the afternoon of December 17, a battle group of the armored First SS Panzer Division ambushed a band of lightly armed U.S. troops. The overwhelmed American GIs’ only option was to raise white flags.

The Nazis accepted their surrender and assembled the American prisoners. Most, they mowed down with machine guns. They used their rifle butts to crush the skulls of others. Those seeking refuge in a café were burned alive or shot. Earlier that day, outside the nearby town of Honsfeld, an American corporal named Johnnie Stegle was randomly selected from a line of captives by an SS soldier who summoned his best English to yell, “Hey, you!” Then he raised a revolver to Stegle’s forehead, killing him instantly. By day’s end, the toll exceeded 150, with 84 murdered at the deadliest of those encounters: the ill-famed Malmedy Massacre.

The stories of those murdered prisoners of war might never have been told, but 50 Americans played dead or overcame their wounds and later recounted the fate of their executed compatriots. Once the fighting was done, the Americans tracked down 75 of the culprits, from generals to rank-and-file German soldiers. Their trial in the spring and summer of 1946, held in the former concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, was among the most intensely followed of the era. The charges included 12 alleged war crimes committed in the general area of Malmedy over the course of a month, resulting in the deaths of 350 unarmed American POWs and 100 Belgian civilians. In July 1946, all but one of the defendants was pronounced guilty, with 43 condemned to death and 22 to life in prison.

The Allies saw Malmedy as a metaphor for Nazi heinousness and American justice. The frozen corpses of slaughtered POWs had been retrieved and carefully autopsied. Intrepid U.S. investigators gathered evidence and conducted in-depth interviews of survivors from both sides. Military prosecutors laid out a vivid portrait not just of this act of barbarity, but of the modus operandi of the SS, the most savage of Hitler’s war-makers.

An alternative telling of the story arose during and after the proceedings, however, that made it the most controversial war-crimes trial in U.S. history. The new version of the incident flipped the script, casting as malefactors the Army investigators, prosecution team and military tribunal. In this story, American interrogators cruelly tortured the German defendants—they were said to have kicked their testicles and wedged burning matches under their fingernails—and the German confessions were coerced. The United States was out for vengeance, this theory held, which shouldn’t have been surprising given that some of the investigators were Jews. Yes, war was brutal, but any atrocities committed that December day in 1944 should be laid at the feet of the Nazi generals who issued the orders, not the troops who followed them. Yes, America had won the war, and it was imposing a classic victor’s justice. The primary advocates of this alternative narrative were the chief defense attorney, the convicted perpetrators and their ex-Nazi supporters, some U.S. peace activists and, most surprising, the junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph R. McCarthy.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/senator-mccarthys-nazi-problem-180975174/

Just a reminder that Republicans have been on the side of fascism for decades.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Tail-Runner Joe?

He played both sides.

[marble falls]

2. There was a passel of others, too ...

https://www.nytimes.com › 1997 › 07 › 23 › us › how-nazis-tried-to-steer-us-politics.html
How Nazis Tried to Steer U.S. Politics - The New York Times
Jul 23, 1997Other committee members were Representative Harold Knutson, Republican of Minnesota, and former Representatives Samuel B. Pettingill of Indiana and John J. O'Connor of New York, both Democrats....

[niyad]

3. KNR and thank you for sharing this fascinating information. Rachel's

speach at the Truman Center pointed out that this was not a one-off. Unfortunately, far too many in charge have favoured the dark side.