GERMAN METHODS
Snt,—That the majority of your readers may be spared the irritation of reading further, I will declare at once that I am a member of that much reviled minority who dislike the enemy. I write not because I hope to turn even one of your readers from the Primrose Path that leads to War III but because I wish to let a little honest hatred creep into a discussion in your columns that is as full-blooded as a rotten Egyptian melon. May I be allowed, Sir, to quote a few facts about these oh so popular Germans—facts that I can vouch for as having seen myself or heard first hand during service in the army in the Middle East, Sicily, Italy, and France. (t) In Amiens four days ago the Germans killed a woman by burning off her breasts with red hot irons. I was told this by an R.A.F. officer who was sheltered in the house from which the girl was taken. (2) The Germans repeatedly used the following methods of obtaining information from suspected F.F.I. Gouging out eyes ; pulling off finger-nails ; breaking the bones of the finger ; red-hot irons ; and more unprintable methods which can be left to the imagination. These facts are universally vouchsafed by numerous members of the F.F.I. with whom I have spoken in a number of places. There is no possible doubt that they are true. (3) Numerous cases have occurred in the Division of which I am a member of Germans surrendering and then throwing hand-grenades at their captors under the cover of the white flag. (4) German wounded have been discovered in Normandy booby-trapped.
But why go on? The papers have reported atrocities by the thousand, the Russians have photographed them. Are the English incapable of believing the evidence of their eyes and of their ears? Do they still doubt these stories as being propaganda? I can assure you that the inability of the English to hate strikes terror and despair into the heart of the French. And equal terror and despair into the heart of some of the English who are doing the fighting. For goodness sake let's shake off this choking, synthetic, humanitarian blanket and come up into the fresh air to breathe.—I am, Sir,
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