ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 6, 1990                   TAG: 9004060944
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

IN 1945, GERMANS ALL INNOCENT AS LAMBS

IN A CHARMING article, "World need not fear united Germany" (March 23), Professor S.B. Payne Jr. of Ferrum College assures us that Germans have reformed and have lived a virtuous democratic life for 45 years.

Had the professor been with me and the 4.2-inch mortar platoon as we cleaned up and then occupied a little corner in Germany in April-June 1945, he would have found that already, at that early date, with the furnaces in the death camps not yet cool, there wasn't a single Nazi in the entire country - not one!

Obviously, the extermination of 12 million people had been accomplished by an army of aliens from the planet Krypton who had already gone back home. And the almost-victorious Wehrmacht? Just a shooting and hiking club.

Ever since Hermann caught the Roman Varus in the Teutoburger Wald in A.D. 9 and destroyed his legions, the Germans have been the most militarily capable and belligerent people in Europe.

Caveat emptor!

\ CHARLES L. STUMPP\ ROANOKE 


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