"necessary to execute large numbers of Germans" | Winston Smith Ministry of Truth Archive

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"necessary to execute large numbers of Germans"

Joseph Pulitzer II (1885-1955) proprietor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, son of the Hungarian-American-Jewish newspaper
proprietor Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911). Pulitzer II's mother, Kate Williamson Davis (1858-1927), was an Episcopalian. 1

Pulitzer II was among the delegation of journalists invited in the Spring of 1945 by General Eisenhower to tour the captured Nazi camps in Germany and witness the horrors of the Nazis themselves. Following his return to the States he spoke at the Society for the Prevention of World War III rally at Manhattan's Carnegie Hall on May 22, 1945. His comments were reported in The New York Times the following day:
After urging that the groups that he held responsible for the horrors ("General Staff, Gestapo, SS and Industrialists") that he had witnessed should receive fair but speedy trials, and any who were found to be innocent should be acquitted, Mr. Pulitzer declared that the rest "should be put out of this world with Army bullets through their heads."

"It is difficult to get any accurate figures on the numbers involved," Mr. Pulitzer said. "The War Department for some reason has been reluctant to release information on the subject. But I estimate that somewhere between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 is a reasonable figure. Possibly 1,500,000 may be the final total." 2

The New York Times, May 23, 1945
click to enlarge

Pultizer II's biographer Daniel W. Pfaff reveals that this wasn't the first occasion that Pulitzer had called for the mass slaughter of Germans. Pfaff writes that in an August 17, 1944 letter to the editor of the editorial page of his newspaper the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ralph Coghlan
he had said he was convinced that it would be necessary to execute large numbers of Germans "and then put the German people on parole and keep them on parole for at least one or probably two generations." 3

In an December 26, 1944 letter Pulitzer urged his editor Coghlan to take
"the strongest, toughest, most remorseless attitude towards all Germans until the day arrives when they have had their German bestiality educated and whipped out of them. Economic opportunity for Germans in our own self-interest after the war, yes; but gentle, sentimental consideration in the meantime, no." 4

Notes:

1. Daniel W. Pfaff, Joseph Pulitzer II and the Post-Dispatch: A Newspaperman's Life, US PA: Pennsylvania State University, 1991, p.16.

2. "Urges Executions of 1,500,000 Nazis," The New York Times, May 23, 1945. online archive ; facsimile.

3. "Joseph Pulitzer II and the European War," by Daniel W. Pfaff, American Journalism Vol. VI (issue no. III), 1989, p.156 ; Pfaff, A Newspaperman's Life, opt cit., p.266.

4. Pfaff, AJ v.VI, op cit. pp.155-156 ; Pfaff, A Newspaperman's Life, opt cit., p.266.

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