Wolfsangel: German City on Trial

by August Nigro

Book Overview

Wolfsangel documents the downing of an American B-24 bomber crew over Germany during World War II, the airmen's lynching by an enraged mob in the city of Russelsheim, and the extraordinary postwar... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1574882457
• ISBN13: 9781574882452
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Potomac Books
• Length: 186 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Everything old is new again!

On August 26, 1944, a small town in western Germany endured fifty-nine minutes of `strategic bombing' by the RAF which destroyed homes and businesses alike. The dead and wounded were civilians. A few hours later, the crew of a downed B-24 Liberator captured after a bombing raid on another town, was marched through the rubble of Russelsheim. The citizens of Russelsheim, presuming that these eight young men were the `Canadians' who had destroyed their town, cursed and spat upon them at first. Then a middle-aged housewife screamed, "There are the terror flyers. Tear them to pieces! Beat them to death! They have destroyed our houses!" With those words, she threw a brick which ignited a riot which resulted in the death of the airmen. A year later, after the war was over, an American military court tried eleven Russelsheimers for war crimes and murder. Augusto Nigro explores the horrors of war and the impact of unrelenting terror on ordinary citizens. He questions the morality that condones the bombing of towns and villages well beyond the lines of combat yet prosecutes and hangs people who kill those who bomb and terrorize. Are there any rules in all-out war, he asks?WOLFSANGEL is an important book. Well-researched and thought out, it tells this little known story in simple, straight forward language that makes for easy reading while touching on the illusive nature of `right and wrong' in a world turned upside down by war. The unanswered questions of 1944 remain issues today as we face a `war on terrorism' by bombing towns and villages suspected of harboring those who terrorize us. It makes the head spin.