The most curious document has just been discovered by archeologists working in the rubble left behind in a suburb of Munich in Germany. The document is a statement dated August 23, 1944. It was evidently issued by the Reichsamt gegen Rassismus und Benachteiligung, which means the Reich's Bureau against Racism and Discrimination.
Here is the translation:
The Reich's Bureau against Racism and Discrimination
August 23, 1944
German Comrades and Citizens:
On behalf of the Reich's Bureau against Racism and Discrimination, I have been asked to formulate this letter of protest concerning insensitivity and racism in the Third Reich. The request came several weeks ago but I was only able to compose the statement on behalf of the Bureau now that I am on leave from my military post as a guard at the camp in Birkenau.
We German citizens of conscience have decided to speak out against an intolerable expression of racism! We refer of course to the wearing of some tee-shirts with barbarous slogans and photographs by Allied troops currently involved in the aggression against the Third Reich. In recent days, we have seen photographs and numerous eyewitnesses have come forward to describe American and British troops in France, Belgium and Holland who were seen in local pubs and cafes during their free hours wearing tee-shirts that carried insensitive epithets about Germans and Germany. One showed a Wiener Schnitzel lying on a guillotine with its tip being sliced off. Another showed Allied soldiers urinating into Bavarian beer mugs. Others contained the derogatory terms 'Kraut' and 'Gerry' and even 'Hun.' Anti-German graffiti is showing up more and more frequently on the walls of Dutch and Belgian public buildings.
There were bumper stickers to be seen on the backs of some American and British tanks and other vehicles that cheered the dropping of incendiary bombs on German citizens. And posters being placed in the towns of French villages under the military occupation of the Allied imperialist forces showed German cities in flames with accompanying slogans celebrating the fires. This is even without beginning to describe the insensitive anti-German rhetoric and behavior of the Soviet Red Army soldiers.
I think we can all agree that this sort of thing is intolerable. We call upon the League of Nations to convene a special assembly to denounce the racism and intolerance being displayed by Allied soldiers. We also ask that the Pope speak up.
There is no doubt that this entire war was caused by the racial intolerance and bigotry of American, British and Russian soldiers, not to mention the thuggish French and Yugoslav partisans. These people simply refuse to accept Germans as fellow human beings, entitled to respect and dignity. Our Bureau is striving to stamp out racism in the New Middle Europe by demanding that all such graffiti, posters, and tee-shirts be banned at once. Only when these expressions of anti-German intolerance and racism are removed will there be any hope for tranquility!
On behalf of the Reichsamt gegen Rassismus und Benachteiligung
Hans Schikelgruber, Hauptamtsleiter
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