War's End

A 32nd Division soldier peers over the trench line during World War I.
(U.S. Army photo Source)

Not sure if y'all remember my series of posts* leading up to Armistice (Veterans) Day last year, but in one of those posts I mentioned Henry Gunther, the last American soldier to be killed in action in World War I. (As a bear mentioned in a comment on one of the posts in the series, "I’d wager that while Gunther may have been the last to die *in* combat, he was not the last to die *from* combat.")

The end of a war (as opposed to the "end of war") is an odd time. On the one hand there is the relief felt by those who came through unscathed, often with its attendant "survivor's guilt," - as one remembers the friends and comrades lost along the way. On the gripping hand (as my friend the Cap'n likes to say, he knows his Niven and Pournelle very well), there are those who wonder what peace will bring.

War is invigorating in some ways, it takes one outside of the normal boundaries of society, which actively discourages killing and breaking things, it brings times of excitement and sheer terror. Many who have engaged in combat have mentioned that they "never felt so alive." Understandable when you consider that being right there on the edge, that line between life and death, and surviving is something you can't experience in a normal peacetime existence. The adrenaline junkies know this, they seek the edge, they push the limits.

But of course, modern society puts many limits on those who push the limits. Try jumping off a tall building with a parachute and see if you don't get arrested!

For most though, the end of a war is looked forward to with anticipation. No doubt there are worries, one becomes cautious, no one wants to be the last man to fall. But someone has to, it's the very nature of armies that there are always those in command who will demand that the killing continues, right until it's "officially" over.

The Armistice which ended hostilities in 1918 was signed shortly after 0500, a cease fire would go into effect at 1100 on the Western Front. Not everyone got the word.

Now those soldiers in that clip no doubt fought honorably, they fought because their country called them to the colors. While atrocities occur in war, much more frequently than some care to admit, World War I wasn't an ideological conflict. It was the last of what I call the dynastic wars, wars initiated because a King or Emperor didn't get his way. Or someone had something they wanted.

World War II was an ideological war, perhaps less so in the Pacific which was, in some ways, an old fashioned war for resources and territory fought between inimical cultures. Which made it all the more bloody and unforgiving.

There were those for whom the war ended, they had survived, but a reckoning was about to come due. Yes, the victors write the history books and get to dispose of the losers as they will, but I don't think anyone can argue that the Nazis did not deserve the punishments meted out at Nuremberg.

Ruins of the Reichstag in Berlin, 3 June 1945.

After watching the clip above regarding the last moments of World War I, YouTube thought I might be interested in the following clip as well. They were correct, I thought you might be interested as well.

I had never heard of Mr. Pierrepoint before Sunday. I did a little reading up on this chap, seems that during his tenure as one of the official hangmen of the United Kingdom he executed 435 men and women between the years 1932 and 1955. This clip, from the brief research I did on the man, seems to capture his personality quite well.

He was a technician, just doing his job. He did not decide the guilt or innocence of the people he executed, the State did that, he was, shall we say, just following orders. The difference being, of course, that the men and women he executed were all guilty of capital crimes, in the case of the Nazis, crimes against humanity itself.

But from my brief reading, there was at least one instance where the State got it wrong and Mr. Pierrepoint executed an innocent man. While you cannot fault the executioner for that, I wonder how someone can face themselves in the mirror after such an event.

For the Nazis, hanging was a merciful end. Unlike those suffered by their millions of victims, guilty of nothing more than being numbered among the groups the Nazis hated. Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, members of other political parties, etc., etc.

I'm sure Mr. Pierrepoint and the other executioners lost no sleep over executing Nazis.




* The link is to the first in the series, "Six Days."