Quote:
Originally Posted by burn_this_city
Its a shame they didnt hang him for war crimes.
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True, but he was really at the bottom of the ladder in terms of war crimes, by the time the leaders and high ranking officers had been tried and executed, a lot of that rage and anger had been burned out of the allies, and it allowed them to show some compassion and mercy.
There was some question over how his orders were interpreted at the time, in his defense when he issued the orders he merely ordered that his men give no quarter to the enemy including one's who surrendered. The IIRC judges at his war trial agreed and stated that there were other significant examples of officers ordering their men to give no quarter and that it couldn't be interpreted as an order to execute prisoners.
If he hadn't been a non repentant facists, if those executions hadn't happened, he would have been looked at as one of the best military officers that the armoured world had ever seen and his life would have turned out differently.
Instead he died at 51 hated but respected even by Canadian Forces Officers who went out of their way to talk to him when he worked for a german brewery after his prison sentence.