Terrible injustice meeted out to deserters

On Sunday evening German television station, Phoenix, aired a programme on soldiers who desert.

They gave short histories on the subject in the US, Soviet/Russian and German armies.

They showed a clip of Richard Nixon commenting on soldiers, who deserted during the Vietnam war. His words would make a person with any sense of moral standards simply sick in her or his stomach. Nixon was the criminal, the deserters the heroes.

But what seems beyond belief is the reality that it was only at the beginning of the 21st century that Germany offered an amnesty or pardon to soldiers who deserted from Hitler's Wehrmacht.

Is this really possible? And what has the world done about it? Nothing and if it has, it has kept amazingly quiet.

Isn't it another metaphor about how those in power and control play all the games according to their rules. And those who kowtow to it all smile their way through life, always on the side of the ruling elite. Whether in State or church.

To think that the brave men and women who refused to support Adolf Hitler were penalised by the Federal Republic of Germany until they were almost dead is appalling. And most of them by then were dead.

To think people who ran away in fear and turmoil from what they might have seen, whether in Stalingrad or at Auschwitz, were later punished. To think that drafted soldiers from Bochum or Dresden or wherever were treated as quasi criminals is simply unimaginable. It is extraordinary and deserves world comment.

The US are not far behind in their moral poverty. And of course we in the West have always been told about what happens/happened in the Soviet/Russian army.

Where have the churches been on this issue?

Why, can someone please explain why.

A butcher at the gates of Stalingrad was treated in a kinder way than the man who could not bear what he saw and ran away.

Does it mean that the deserters were denied German army pensions? Simply incredible.

And all the yes men, the ones who stand around and make sophisticated clever arguments to justify things. And I have seen them first hand within the hierarchical church. The stooges with their silly canon law and theological arguments packed neatly under their arms. Pathetic.

An official at the German embassy in Dublin has confirmed the veracity of the television programme. He was most pleasant and seemed upset and ashamed about it. He was born in the former GDR.