of the war crimes of NAZI soldiers during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmachtsausstellung
Some of the material were found in correspondence that the soldiers had sent to their families from the front.
I suggest that everyone who is interested in the Manning case, regardless of your point of view, watch that film.
What if you had been a soldier who witnessed the war crimes? Would you have come forward during the war and paid the price for speaking out? Would you have remained silent until after the war and then spoken out?
Watch the film and think about what you would have done?
Manning disobeyed the rules and regulations of the military, but then so did the soldiers whose acts he made public. Who was the worse criminal? If Manning is to be punished, should the soldiers who committed acts in disregard of innocent civilians, and the politicians who tortured and encouraged soldiers to kill innocent people and torture also be punished?
Would we consider a German who spoke out against the war crimes to be a criminal or a soldier? What if the facts he made public concerned matters that were themselves not war crimes but that were part of the pattern that led to and caused the war crimes?
What do we think about the men of conscience, the many pastors and priests in NAZI Germany who risked and even lost their lives as they tried to let the world know what was going on? Pastor Niemoller was imprisoned for speaking out. If you had lived in Germany, would you have considered him to be a traitor?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller
It is very easy to judge the actions of people who lived in countries waging wars. When your country is involved, it is very difficult to know what is right and what is wrong.
Manning acted out of conscience. Had more German soldiers followed their consciences, the world would have suffered far less.
And by the way, the study upon which the film, The Unknown Soldier, was based found that ORDINARY German foot-soldiers who refused to carry out orders to commit war crimes against civilians, including Jewish civilians, were not pursued in court for violating orders. I have always understood that they were. That part of the film seems unclear to me. Watch the film yourself and see if you understand it the way I did.
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