Watchdog calls on VA to remove headstones inscribed with swastikas from national military cemetery

[Person of Interest]

Watchdog calls on VA to remove headstones inscribed with swastikas from national military cemetery

https://bit.ly/2WpsGae

[LeftInTX]

1. Those headstones have been there for a long time.

My parents are both buried there.
The Obama admin wouldn't do anything, we certainly can't expect the Trump admin to do anything about it.

[keithbvadu2]

2. Trump will say some of them were very fine people.

Trump will say some of them were very fine people.

[BGBD]

3. We should

repatriate these bodies.

Regardless of anything else, these are German soldiers and they should be back in Germany. Let the Germans decide what should be done with them after that. We certainly shouldn't have any foreign soldiers, especially enemies, buried here. That goes double for any with nazy iconography on their headstones.

[Jake Stern]

4. No matter what is on their headstones

The war is over. It's time to return these bodies to Germany so they can be buried with their families.

[LeftInTX]

7. I assume they could not locate their families

After the war, most of the interred POW Nazis were sent back. I believe there are 140 at Ft. Sam, but for some reason 2 or 3 headstones have the Nazi symbols. I don't know why the 2 headstones have the symbols and inscriptions. It is more of an oddity than anything.

Originally the POWs were buried in a fenced area separate from the cemetery, but as the cemetery grew the fence came down.

Here is another one in the same cemetery with no symbols.

[dsc]

8. even so I can't fathom that if there were remains of American POWs in Germany we wouldn't

take them back, family or no.

[cwydro]

9. Many soldiers were not members of the Nazi party.

A lot of people don’t realize this.

[LeftInTX]

12. European WWII POWs in the US are an obscure part of history

We don't learn about it in school.

My parents are both buried at the cemetery in the original post. I got a bit chummy with a funeral home employee and she told me that about the headstones with the Nazi symbols. (Small talk, bit of trivia, at a boring cemetery...as a matter of fact, I think I might have said, "This cemetery is so boring"...I think that is when she mentioned it..) From there I read up a bit on it.

[Hekate]

5. You have anything to add to that, Person of Interest?

[Historic NY]

6. They should not have had those symbols on them...

even the overseas German Cemeteries don't have anything more than an Iron Cross.

This is the highest ranking POW who died here and he doesn't have it a Fort Benning

[link:|


There is one in Utah but the stone was provided by other POWS not our government.

They can find out easily who authorized it, there is a card on file for every headstone ordered.

[cwydro]

10. Again, not all soldiers were members of the Nazi party.

[Historic NY]

11. They buried here in the US

they are not entitled period. They wouldn't have it in Germany.