Outrage at Nazi swastikas in veterans cemeteries

| May 30, 2020


One of several Nazi headstones in question

Been getting alerts from some of our usual suspects- our pal Mikey Weinstein’s coffers are running low again and he needs a new outrage to try on. He’s found one in the discovery of grave markers in VA cemeteries bearing Nazi symbology.

“Secretary Robert Wilkie must immediately replace the gravestones of all German military personnel interred in VA national cemeteries so that absolutely no Nazi-era symbols … will ever again be allowed to appear on such gravestones,” said Mikey Weinstein, chair of Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

At issue are three grave sites at two VA cemeteries: Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in Texas and Fort Douglas Post Cemetery in Utah. Both were used to inter dozens of unclaimed remains of enemy troops following World War II.

Mikey even managed to stir up the House Military Construction-VA Appropriations subcommittee, chaired by non other than Debbie Wasswerman Schultz (D-FL).

VA secretary grilled on Nazi grave markers at military cemeteries

BY: JENNIFER SHUTT

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie on Thursday wouldn’t commit to removing three headstones containing swastikas and messages honoring Adolf Hitler from the graves of German prisoners of war, frustrating House lawmakers.

Wilkie said he wanted to work with members of Congress to put such anti-Semitic and racist imagery in the proper “historical context.”

“I happen to think that making sure that when people visit our cemeteries they are educated and informed of the horror is an incredibly important thing to do,” Wilkie said during testimony before the House Military Construction-VA Appropriations subcommittee. “Erasing these headstones removes them from memory and as we continue to study the Holocaust, the last thing any Holocaust scholar wants to do is erase that memory.”

Subcommittee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., was not satisfied with Wilkie’s answer. She said the presence of such imagery in cemeteries that are home to World War II veterans, who died fighting Nazis and the ideology they represented, is unacceptable.

“The Nazi swastika is prohibited in Germany from being displayed because it is not seen as a reminder to prevent the hatred that it spawned; it is seen as something to be snuffed out,” she said. Wasserman-Schultz was referencing a German law that prevents public displays of “symbols of unconstitutional organizations” such as the Nazi salute and swastikas, although some images are allowed in video games.

I rather think WWII Vets would like to keep the reason for their sacrifices alive, not hidden away and forgotten. That’s just me, YMMV. Read the entire article here: American Military News

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Usual Suspects, Veterans Issues

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Roh-Dog

Kafka?! Hahahaha!
Well played, TAH staffs, well played.
It’s easy as this: remember history as it happened, not as you want it to be.
If you don’t…… just don’t.

The Other Whitey

Couldn’t make this up!

Commissar

It is a little weird we went this way with the symbol on the graves.

But within reason.

Really not an issue.

I understand why we buried unclaimed enemy combatants in a veteran cemetery. Better if they had a designated cemetery though.

Perhaps we should create a national cemetery for enemy combatants.

Comment edited to remove blatantly offensive remark.
AW1

NHSparky

Comment edited to remove blatantly offensive remark.
AW1

Shocked face. Right here.

Way to go, dipshit.

Skippy

Fort Stanton has four Nazi graves and one EOJ gave
What’s the big deal

Mason

Feels bad man.

Herbert J Messkit

Ft Lewis has 3 German graves, but I don’t think they have the “for Fuehrer And honor” crap that Gefreite Kafka has

Commissar

I would be much more sympathetic for the Confederates if they were fighting for a noble cause.

But the south opposed states rights all the way up to the moment they began to secede. They fought to prevent any state from abolishing slavery and fought against any state that did not allow slavery to enter the union.

And most of the Souther state secession constitutions specifically and explicitly talked about preserving white supremacy and the institution of slavery.

They were traitors. And they were traitors for the worst possible reason.

Despite the revisionist attempts at justifying their treason.

Commissar

Ok, this post seems like a non sequitur.

It was intended as a reply to AW1Ed. But his post was removed and this reply ended up un-nested as a reply.

Ignore it.

Commissar

Just to be clear; your pushing my buttons has you in Moderation.
AW1

Oh yeah. Feel free to appeal my decision via the TAH Admin email address in the Contact Us tab. You can also contact me directly.

OWB

Thank you. He is a lot easier to ignore when we are not forced to scroll through his posts.

Roh-Dog

Normally, I’d push buttons and egg you right on, begging for what was said, but I guess I’m growing up.
Look, as much as I hate some of your BS and think you’re a Leftie loon, rudderless on a lake of your own misery,.
I respect your stick-to-it-ness and the banter. Your logic maybe foreign to me but having you here, constantly, like a rash the Doctors can’t figure out, makes me happy.
So, do us a flavor? STFU and STOP antagonizing Ed!
Ain’t no need.
Civility is the greatest form of currency! (Says the brokest b*tch at TAH!)

Green Thumb

But depending on where one was born (considering the time / era), they may not have had a choice.

And do you really thing the Union rank and file really gave a damn about Slavery?

Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH B Woodman

“But the south opposed states rights all the way up to the moment they began to secede.”
Bull. Fuckin’. SHit.
The South was fighting FOR “states rights” against the push by the North. Even if it was for what I think of as that “evil institution”.
And don’t go reading more into my nom de plume then is intended. The “Racist” is tacked on as a poke in the eye to whichever politician decided to call all conservatives “racist”.

11B-Mailclerk

I would argue that “the fugitive slave act” was a big-time hit against the rights of states to prohibit slavery.

It was also -epic- stupid.

Slow Joe

The Confederation was run by your party, the Democrats. You own it.

5th/77th FA

At the risk of hijacking the thread, I will consider the ignorant source of that comment and treat it as a puppy would. It’s useless, Pee on it and walk away.

These are Historical War Memorials and should be treated as such.

Roh-Dog

Amen, you dirty Reb!
I’d give my Southern friends a ration of shit about the Civil War and the Lost Cause.
Come to find out, my northern arrogance and holier-than-thou up bringing was missed placed.
I stand with the Sons of the Confederacy, I defend the monuments and graves of my fellow countrymen! Just as hard as I stand with Doctor King’s Legacy and the peace he so dearly paid for!
It all ain’t pretty, some of it need not be done, but that ship done sailed a looong time ‘go.

Now them nazi folks… their fight was over and they just happened to buy the farm in the Land of the Free. It’s their legacy, you ain’t gotta agree but they deserve a right to be remembered. Especially if it’s uncomfortable.

That’s what right is.

5th/77th FA

^TESTIFY^ Warrior minds do think alike, don’t they? You don’t have to support the war, but you must pay respects to the Warrior.

I think if we all just start ignoring the asinine POS, maybe he’ll just ESAD!

The lowest ranked Soldier of any Army in any War has more Honor to them underneath their little fingernail than the seagull has in his entire being.

Roh-Dog

I don’t know who seagull is, or what he’s really done. Don’t matter much to me.
100 years from now I don’t want the ‘Woke’ idiots to declare the nuking of Japan a war crime and decide all Pacific Theatre graves to be ‘unclean’ or something.
Then all the ETO graves, then Vietnam, etc, so on…

5th/77th FA

Roh-Dog; seagull = larsie boi and/or any of the other names he’s used here over the years. I have been part and parcel to maintaining War Memorials since I was old enough to remember. One of the ones we paid Honors to today, that is literally in the Middle of BFE Nowhere, simply reads “Unknown Federal Soldier.” That’ll be a story for another thread, maybe. In all the years that I have been doing this, we have preached that the attack on all thing Confederate was just the beginning of the attack on all War Memorials and the symbols of our Republic. Confederate, and other “Foreign” symbols were the low hanging fruit. The proverbial “they” would get to the rest eventually, if not sooner. That eventually is here and now. This post alone is just another in a sequence of attacks on War Memorials of ALL TYPES. The Confederate Battle Flag attacks have led to attacks on the Christian Flag, the US Flag, and how many Police Flags now. And this dippy weinstein (sic) foes from place to place stirring the pot because he is an attention whore, just as the other dippy here. We have had Posts here on his other attacks, The Peace Memorial Attacks, the WWI Memorials, the list goes on. It needs to stop. When the very FIRST War Memorial Service was held in the South in the Spring of 1865, right after Lee surrendered, the Ladies Aid Societies marked and decorated the Union Dead along with the Confederate Dead. The work that these Ladies had done during the War and immediately after insured that these men’s graves were findable by the Government and allowed so many to be located and re-interred in the areas that are now known as National Cemeteries. But, again, I digress. I think that the German Government, along with the Japanese, made a mistake by trying to erase this History in their Countries. That whole “learn from it or be doomed to repeat it thing.” We all know that the FIRST thing that a Marxist, Facist, Communist, or Socialist wants to… Read more »

A Proud Infidel®™

“100 years from now I don’t want the ‘Woke’ idiots to declare the nuking of Japan a war crime and decide all Pacific Theatre graves to be ‘unclean’ or something.”

Back in the late eighties when I was in college, I took a beginning urinalism course I had to endure some “woke” asshole who was lecturing just that to us.

NHSparky

I was gonna say, back in HS many moons ago, that’s exactly what the liberal History teacher tried to pimp out, until some folks pointed out casualty estimates from Operation Downfall.

11B-Mailclerk

We consistently underestimated Pacific Theater casualties. even today We hear the idiocy of “Japan was about to surrender!” and “Japan was about to collapse!”

Neither were true.

We convinced -one- man to surrender, the Emperor. Some tried pretty hard to overthrow him for it. If not for a lucky bombing of local power, disrupting the coup, it likely would have succeeded in making necessary a more bloody massacre.

And “bloody” would have been in the -tens- of millions.

Death, of tens of millions of mostly Japanese, of which the supposed non-racists are seemingly very accepting. They dont think much about a million or two dead American soldiers, at all.

Roh-Dog

And damn right “respect the Warrior”.

11B-Mailclerk

We named our various helicopters after -who-?

-That- is -respect-.

We assimilated -who-? That is also -respect-. We wanted them -of- us, not against us. Politically? They were disasters. Many surviving tribes haven’t exactly improved much, politically. As -fighting men-?

Some of those folks could have made the Afghanis weep.

Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH B Woodman

I think the term is “honorable foe”.
And I stand in defense of grave sites and headstones even of enemy soldiers.

timactual

“Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face though they come from the ends of the earth!”

OWB

What was the topic again?

Oh, yeah. Little Mikey and his Napoleonic complex. Apparently he still thinks he can dictate to the rest of us how we should behave.

Honoring the war dead of your enemy is an honorable thing to do. Isn’t that why these same people object to whipping it out and peeing on the corpses of the enemy? This seems to be just one more for instance of just how unstable they become when they attempt to engage brain activity.

Leave the graves, and the headstones, alone. Leave them at peace.

Hack Stone

Look at the sendoff the US Navy gave to OBL.

Deckie

Or what Admiral Callaghan did for a dead Japanese pilot, despite how angry it made his crew at the time.

11B-Mailclerk
11B-Mailclerk

I also found this on another Admiral Callaghan, MOH, died in the Battle of Guadalcanal.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_J._Callaghan

If you read the story of his death in that battle, there was an oddity of chain of command. Instead of passing fleet command to the next senior officer on another ship, the surviving senior aboard, LtCdr McCanldess, retained command, though junior. Normally this is misconduct. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. (Note “a” in the Wikipedia entry)

If you have read David Weber’s Honor Harrington series, you will recognize a major plot item that sounds very much like the above events.

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

I’m Jewish.

I see nothing wrong with Swastikas being on the gravestone of an actual Nazi. I fail to see how that is doing anything other than calling a spade a spade, and Weinstein needs to go find something that actually needs doing.

Clearly he needs to buy a farm (not mine). It’ll keep him too busy for this bs.

Fyrfighter

Actually I’d suggest that he needs to suck-start your Mosin, but that might be considered inappropriate… that being said I can’t imagine him being useful as anything but worm food.

David

How would they rather mark their graves, with standard-issue US military stones? You can’t even post the term Nazi online in a comment section. Seems like Newspeak is alive and well.

Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH B Woodman

WELCOME BACK Farmgirl.
Long time no hear.
Hope you and yours are doing well.
Come around more often.
Introduce the rest of the family.

5th/77th FA

She dropped by to visit yesterday on the Friday FGS Thread. I had a nice chat with her. I know that everyone is not as methodical as I am, going back off and on to check thru the threads to see who popped in, but you’d be surprised who might stop by. Here’s the linky…She can cook too, you know that…don’t you? Sadly, for some of us, she is also a farmwife so some other lucky dog has his feet under her table and his boots under her bed. Waaaaaaaaaaahhh!

https://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=100234

11B-Mailclerk

Somehow, I cannot see you needing a scuzzball like Whine-stain as a “white knight.

I can, however, imagine you explaining it to him, though. (Grin) -Epic- pay-per-view opportunity. If you ever do, get video, multiple angles. Epic opportunity.

timactual

Eventually, if the Weinsteins get their way, all we will know is that something bad happened in the past, but we dare not mention it. Like primitive tribesmen avoiding something because “it” is possessed by evil spirits. Even thinking about “it” may result in being possessed by those evil spirits.

MI Ranger

It is likely something even more sinister. The Democratic Party would like to erase all history so they may begin again. New and refreshed to appeal to the young and impressionable. They will then systematically show that all sins against them belong to their rivals and not themselves, and can be attributed to pure evil, as defined by themselves. The making of a Cult if I ever saw one.

Green Thumb

I would argue that this more of an Iron Cross.

Besides, doesn’t our (Army) Marksmanship Badge look like this?

Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH B Woodman

If you look closely in the middle of the Iron Cross, you’ll see a swastika.

Green Thumb

I agree.

If I look closely at ancient Egyptian (and other) cultures, I will see one as well.

Point being, it is a military award given by a foreign military.

I can only imagine that some other countries consider our Campaign Medals / Ribbons racist as well. I hate Fascism, Racism and Nazi’s for sure (though I do not know any older ones – just new age punks), but the German Army was just that, an Army. One that was recognized by the free world. Many fought honorably, I am sure. Liberal historians seem to think all were SS.

My father hated the VC with a passion (IN w/ 2 PH Vietnam – drafted) and he hated the NVA, but he respected the latter.

Nothing to see here.

Moving on.

ArmyATC

This brings to mind a little family history. My wife’s grandfather was a soldier in the German Army. He was sent to the Eastern Front where he was never heard from again.

Mason

He is a soldier who died in service of his country. We buried him with honor, as is right. To honor his sacrifice we put the national symbol of his country on his grave marker. That is all.

This is not the US Govt somehow tacitly supporting the Nazis.

Green Thumb

Word.

As we have many Confederate Soldiers interred in ANC.

5th/77th FA

Not hi-jacking per-se but I need to drop this little ditty here. Put the Rebel Monuments in a museum they said. They’ll be safe there. Add more inclusive interpretation, it’ll show balance, they said. They’ll be coming for a War Memorial near you next. National news is ignoring this right now. WAPO had an article that was almost expressing glee. Mofos wanted another Civil War? It’s coming.

https://www.wpxi.com/news/protesters-some/6T3Y6PXOTVTZZDH2XY5F3CQH5M/

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

Were these the U-Boot sailors they hung for killing one of their own that was giving info on the boats to the US which was called collaborating. He was transfered to another POW camp where one of the POW’s recognized him and one night he was killed. Those involved were hung before the war ended but was kept under wraps due to German retaliation in their POW camps. Every year, flowers are placed on the head stones by person/persons unknown and they were buried facing in one of the compass points which was to discrace them if I remember.

rgr1480

This one, Kafka, died of diptheria, pneumonia, bronchitis.

Link originally posted by Commissar:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17992800/alfred-p-kafka

Anent the Iron Cross, this symbol was often used by the Wehrmacht on their soldiers’ graves during WWII.

Crete; 1LT Count von Blücher’s grave:
http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4642288&stc=1&d=1587821132
[at age 23 he earned the Knight’s Cross to the Iron Cross for actions at Eben-Emaël.]

Other Wehrmacht graves:
comment image

It makes sense we would emulate that during the war.

— other —
The ᛋᛋ used the “death rune” — Imagine a 1960s peace medal without the circle:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I9z5p6QxmfI/TxERaL_uLII/AAAAAAAAATI/s7K8-dEefhg/s1600/Life%2BRune%2BVI-.jpg

David

Believe I recall that a ‘gefreiter’ is a ‘sergeant’, not Navy.

My best friend in high school as well as my first real ove were both children of WWII Wehrmacht POWs who were interred in the US…and liked it enough to stay.

Mason

Gefreiter translates to private. In NATO rank it’s OR-2, so ranks with E-2 Private in our Army.

Gefreiter is a rank used by all three branches of the German military today and the WWII Wehrmacht.

11B-Mailclerk

Who buried the Nazis?

Thus endeth the important lesson

OldSoldier54

🙂

Hack Stone

So, if any extended guests at Camp Gitmo were to “checkout”, would this asswipe oppose any Muslim symbols on their final resting places?

Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH B Woodman

If I remember my Islamic “traditions” correctly (and I may be wrong), the muzzies don’t believe in cemeteries and gravestones. Just a shallow hole in the desert sand, unmarked.

11B-Mailclerk

Some mark them noticeably. Some don’t.

A Proud Infidel®™

LITTLE Mikey WHINEstein obviously makes it his life’s mission to find things to be “offended” about. May he get a group of THE meanest Outlaw Bikers that have ever lived pissed off at him with no witnesses around!

Duane

I think we need to pass the hat and buy the biggest tube of “Prep H” that we can to send to him in hopes he’ll use it as a body rub and just go away.

rgr1480

Or the Big Bag O’Dicks.

Hondo

Sugar-free gummi? (smile)

Poetrooper

Debbie Wasserman Schulz, who aided and abetted foreign spying in the House of Representatives then protected the perps when they were discovered.

Nuff said…

Green Thumb

And who the DNC ran out of town…..

Quickly, no less. I wonder if she had time to pack?

MSG Eric

And fixed the primary election so Hillary would be the nominee.

gitarcarver

We wrote about this issue yesterday.

http://raisedonhoecakes.com/ROH/nazi-headstones/

Our short take is this:
1) We have a tendency to see history though our eyes and mores of today, rather than of those in the time period. Imposing our outlook on decisions made then is dangerous and frankly wrong. Changing / rewriting history is vile.
2) The people who decided to allow the markers were in the middle of a war where Nazis were trying to kill the fathers, sons, and brothers of Americans. If the leaders of that time were fine with the stones, who are we to disagree?
3) Not many people know that there were POW camps in the US. This means that the markers can be used as a teaching moment of history.
4) The markers can be used as a teaching moment to the horrific Nazi dogma, and how hatred turned decent people into monsters. (And how we should fight Nazi ideals here.)
5) Finally, the VA said in a statement that the markers are by definition an “historic relic” that they cannot change or destroy by law.

If the Congress wants to censor history let them change the law to do it first. They should not be demanding that an agency violate the law.

This is just the Congress virtue signaling.

Jim

Reading this calls to mind the rising sun flag in Japan, the one with the multiple sun rays emanating outward. Always thought that flag has a simple elegance. I know it creates controversy, not only in Japan but also to nearby countries.

rgr1480

Still flown by the Japanese Maritime Defense force.

11B-Mailclerk

“Defense”

Yeah. Right. Kinda like our “department of defense”?

They have built Aircraft Carriers. They can call them “destroyers” all they want. Those are Carriers.

One carrier is named Kaga. Sound familiar? China will certainly recognize that name.

rgr1480

And their Ground “Self-Defence” Force has bayonets … but it’s not an “army!”

Wish they’d change Section 9 of their constitution and allow an “army.”

“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”
— Article 9, The Constitution of Japan (1947)

Anytime they have a complaint about how the constitution doesn’t work (or whatever), they say “the constitution IMPOSED on us by the US” …. hell, they’ve had 60 years to fix that!

Hondo

Whinestein again, eh?

Wonder if it’s about time to take a closer look at MRFF’s finances. It’s a 501c organization, so the 990s are public record documents and are available on line.

ninja

UPDATE:

“VA Relents, Will Replace Nazi Gravestones In National Cemeteries”:

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/va-relents-will-replace-nazi-gravestones-in-national-cemeteries-1.632072

“In an about-face, the Department of Veterans Affairs decided Monday to remove three gravestones etched with swastikas from VA-operated cemeteries.”