GERMANS WE MUST HANG.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 195, 28 July 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

GERMANS WE MUST HANG.

N HAT every natiox does to GAOLERS WHO MURDER THEIR PRISONERS.

When this war ends, says a London paper, and the day of reckoning comes, no doubt many Hun criminals will escape their just deserts. In the joy of peace wa shall he magnanimous. Xot all will hang who deserve hanging. But there are two Germans that neither England nor Russia will ever consent to pardon. These are General von Dasssel and Dr. Ashenbach, the commandant and the medical officer respectively wlro were in charge of th© German prison camp of Wittenberg Th esc two shall assuredly swing. For such is the law and the vengeance i f nations. hen Grant accepted the surrender of the Confederate General Lee under the historic app!.*-:re in Appomatox Courtyard at the eio.-e of the American Civil War. Lee, !ikc the chivalrousSoutherner he was, pleaded for an amnesty. "Xone shall be molested," promised Grant, "save only one man. He mustdie."' "And his name?"' queried Lee. "That I know not,'' answered Gran'. " But I mean tne man, whoever he may prove to be, who has had charge of our prisoners at Andersonville." STARVED AXD TORTURED THE PRISOXERS. And as Grant sr-id, so it was. Andersonville was the Wittenberg of Hk> Southern American States. The commandant of that prison camp starved the Xorthern prisoners, flogged them, tortured thorn, shot them, allowed'" them to die of preventable diseas/e, just as the commandant of the Black Hob of Wittenberg flogged and tortured and shot, and permitted to perish of typhus, the unfortunates under his charge. The name of the man responsible for the Andersonville horrors was, as we have seen, not even known to General Grant when he made up his mind to have him hanged. But he was soon run to earth. And who do you think he turned out to me? Xot a Southerner. Xot ;>.n American even. But a German r by name Carl Wirz. The brute fought lard for his life. The hyphenated Americans of those days subscribed lar<;e sums of money for his defence. He was given a long trial. But n the end he was found guilty, and hanged on November 10th, 1860, just seven months after Lee's surrender ended the war. Wirz was the one and only criminal executed after the conclusion of the war by the Xort'll for crimes cimmHteri during that terrible conflict. It is for~ us to see that certainly not fewer than two are hanged—Das-el and Asclwnbach. Doubtless there are others who rihclv deserve hanging, many others; but of thtse two we must make sure. THE BLACK HOLE OF WURTEMBERG. There are pV'nty of precedents for our acting in this manner. The tortur of hapless prisoners of war h;\s always l>< en accounted as one of the vilest of crimes, and as calling for most condign pun ; shment. We can .even, if we like, cite tlu" Hun's own example, for after the war between Prussia and Austria in 1866 the Prussians tried by court-martial, and promptly hanged, the Austrian Colonel Vogel for alleged cruelty to their prisoners of war at Xeubrunn. And VogH, even by the Prussians' own showing, had not committed one-mti-ctli part of the abominations that havo been proved against the unspeakable Dassel and the iron-cro?s-bedecke(T Aschenbach. Those who wish to know full details of their brutality should giot a copy of the official report, entitled "The Horrors of W-'ttenberg."'

Wo Britons have over shown ourselves merciful to fallen foes, but we promptly put to death Snrajah Dowlah, the young Xawab of Bengal, for having caused the tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta. And it is doubtful if even that ghastly business—and even if wo accept the ordinary published account of it ;'s being strictly accurate —exceeded in horror some of the worst davs in the Wittenberg black hole. Certainly the sum total of the horrors perpetrated there exceeded by a thousandfold those enact.'d in the one short Indian n : ght in the Calcutta prison.