Three Headstones in American Military Cemeteries Bear Swastikas

[lapucelle]

More than 1,300 veterans have been laid to rest in the Fort Douglas Post Cemetery in Salt Lake City since it was established in 1862. Each of these graves, of course, tells a story. But one of them, on its own, complicates the entire narrative.

The headstone belongs to Paul Eilert—a German prisoner of war who died in Utah in 1944. It is marked with more than the average epitaph. Eilert’s headstone, in an American military cemetery, is inscribed with a finely carved swastika. It’s small but unmistakable, and until recently, there were no plans whatsoever to address it, let alone remove it.

https://bit.ly/2YsN6ir

[allnews]

1. What the hell?!

Why are they buried there? Were they Americans?

[lapucelle]

2. They were German WW II POWs. N/T

[LeftInTX]

3. Those headstones are in the process of being replaced.

New headstones will not have swastikas. They may just have birth and death dates. I think we should at least ID them as POWs, so the public knows why they are buried there.

[lapucelle]

4. Good to know. N/T

[Aristus]

5. I seem to remember a proviso in the Geneva Conventions regarding the burial of POW's.

That they were to be buried according to the regulations of their own military service. Which in this case, is the swastika.

I wonder if his remains can be repatriated to Germany. Let them deal with the conflict between the Geneva Convention and Germany's ban on the swastika.

[LeftInTX]

6. Germany won't take them.

Remains of other POWs were repatriated, but a handful could not find anyone willing to except.

These headstones are in the process of being replaced. The swastikas will be gone.

[milestogo]

7. Headstones are not statues in public places.

[sarisataka]

10. True, a headstone for a soldier

That died on US soil during the war is very different than putting a statue of Wilhelm Keitel in downtown Berlin, Wisconsin

[LuvNewcastle]

8. I would leave them alone.

They could carve "German POW" on each tombstone. I think that's sufficient explanation. Do we really want to spend money on new tombstones that hardly anyone is going to see, anyway? Waste of funds and effort.

[NutmegYankee]

9. Headstones respresent the person buried there.

As soldiers of the German Army serving under the swastika flag, that would have been and still is appropriate by international law.

[RobinA]

11. I Completely Agree

That was the legitimate symbol for this guy’s military affiliation at the time. If you don’t want an enemy soldier in you graveyard, send prisoners home alive.

Plus, they’re people. If my family hadn’t come here to escape Louis XIV that soldier might be my relative. We all might have been on different sides than we ended up on.

Wait, we brought German soldiers back to the states?

[NutmegYankee]

12. There were POW camps all over the USA.

Britain sent there’s to Canada. The goal is get them far enough from the lines so that they can’t be easily liberated or escape.

[Ex Lurker]

13. Mostly from Rommel's Afrika Korps

Plus a few UBoat crews. There were thousands of them housed in camps all over the country. There's a story about some of them housed in the South. They were on a a work detail outsude the camp. At lunchtime they were allowed to eat at a local diner. The Black soldiers guarding them had to wait outside.

[sarisataka]

14. Many German and Italian POWs

Were brought to the US.

They only needed to be lightly guarded as even if they escaped they could not return to combat

Many were given the opportunity to be farm laborers and receive pay for their work. This was popular especially in the midwest where a lot of farmers were first and second generation German immigrants. They shared a common language with the POWs.