Above it the six people they are scanning through hope you can
see them all ok:)
During War War Two a German Submarine The U-118 were attacked by
two American planes only 16 out of the original Fifty-Eight-Man Crew survived.
They were picked up by an American Destroyer and held as Prisoners of war..
New prisoners of war were taken to Fort Meade in Maryland where they under
went harsh questioning. Then after the interrogation they were taken to
another area of the US and held in a permanent prisoner of war camp. One
German a man named Werner Drechsler decided to cooperate with the Naval
officers. Drechsler stayed at Fort Meade and helped to interrogate other
prisoners who were brought there.
After nine months of helping the Navy out the Navy decided they
didn't need his help any more and put him in Army hands. They however told
the Army not to put him with other Submarine POW camps because he would
be recognized and labeled a traitor. For unknown reasons the Army did not
take heed the warning that the Navy asked them to do and he was placed
in Arizona a camp that housed almost all the other German Submariners that
were caught. And only six hours later Drechsler was hanged by his fellow
submariners. The day was March 12, 1944.
Over the next few weeks there was a lot of questions given to the
prisoners about what happened but each man claimed to know nothing or to
see or hear nothing. One of the men questioned was Captain Jurgen Wattenburg
the highest ranking officer in the camp.
The Army then proceeded to take one prisoner at a time and give
them lie detector tests and from that they got 20 potential people who
have either had part in it or had seen or heard something. These 20 men
were then sent to a secret camp in Stockton California, for further questioning.
Most all the 20 men taken were enlisted men although there were some Non-Commissioned
officers.. One of those men broke down and told investigators the whole
story.
Murza the one who broke down and started to tell the story said
that a bunch of men got together after Drechslers identity had been discovered
they then decided what to do with this traitor. It was said they decided
to kill him. Although some of the prisoners wanted to just beat him up
real good.
He then proceeded to name the names of seven of the men who were
the cause of this. Each of the seven men were brought back in for intensive
questioning and told that the investigators already knew the whole story.
These men's names were Helmut Fisher, Fritz Franke, Bernard Reyak, Guenther
Kuelsen, Otto Stengel, Heinrich Ludwig, and Rolf Wizguy.
They were then going to be brought before the court-martial board
and asked to testify there were to ways for them to go about this one was
for them to swear under oath what had happened and the other was to basically
just tell there story on the stand without having to be cross-examined.
Each of the men plead not guilty. There reasoning was because the man they
killed was a traitor and deserved to die. Any American would of done the
same most likely.
The men were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging until
they died. This went through more than one persons hands and all found
just about the same results. They were German citizens so America had to
contact the Germans to let them know the way they did this was through
the Swiss Embassy sense the Swiss had remained Neutral throughout this
whole ordeal.
Well when the Americans got a hold of Germany the Germans told
America they had POWs that they would release for the seven men that they
had a fair switch The Americans Agreed to the idea and then proceeded to
make arrangements. The arrangements made was they would drop of both sets
of POWs at the gate of a swiss embassy. Then the word came that Germany
had surrendered and that the American POWs were recovered so the POWs that
we had that had been committed of the crime were still in America at the
time and the people in control agreed that the sentence should be with
held the men were then taken one at a time and hung.
Back to Famous Military Trials