A few columns ago we discussed an instructional manual for American servicemen in Britain in 1942, the column’s headline was “Over Here, Over Paid and Over Sexed”, describing the Brits impression of American GI’s. 

But the manual for the GI’s discussed the American’s impressions of the Brits and suggesting how the GI’s should behave in their country. It was a common sense approach for American GI’s going to the UK and working with allies to defeat the Nazis.

A compatible book written for British servicemen going to Germany had a striking difference, circa 1944.

Both books were provided to me by a friend, a member of the ‘Greatest Generation’  who was part of the Normandy invasion, Art Nicholas.

He married a British lady who he met during the war, and they both go back to visit with her father who is now 97.  On a recent trip Art brought back these two books and shared them with me.

Well, the striking difference between the two books represents an instructional book for Americans working with allies and understanding how to deal with the cultural difference of another nation, while the British book dealt with occupying the country of an enemy. 

The instructional manual for British soldiers played hardball.

Let’s take a look at the instructions as issued by The Foreign Office, London, and we might want to look at it in comparison to what we are dealing with today with Islamic extremists, or perhaps the religion of Islam in the Mid East for there is a striking resemblance to Nazi Germany:

The British soldiers were warned not to give the German people a pass.  One segment of the book said, “The German people as a whole cannot escape a large share of responsibility.  The main instruments of German policy were certainly Hitler’s Black guards and Secret Police, but ordinary German officers, NCO’s and men acted often enough with the same brutality.  Individual German soldiers and civilians may have deplored it, but no one was found to protest publicly and in good time against it.”

We see the same type of behavior in the Middle East by those who practice the Islamic religion, whether or not they are members of al Qaeda.

The Koran says if you don’t believe in Ali, “death be to you.”

This is a belief of those that practice the Islamic religion — not necessarily Islamic extremists.

But let us proceed with the comparison to show how what goes around comes around. 

A segment of the manual for the British military worth noting says, “The history of these last years must not be repeated.  The purpose of the British common-wealth and its Allies, and of the forces which represent them, is not vengeance against the Germans.

“It is to make sure that they will never again have the chance to submerge Europe and the world in blood.  Remember for as long as you are in Germany that you would not be there at all if German crimes had not made this war inevitable, and that it is only by the sacrifice of thousands upon thousands of your fellow countrymen an Allies, and at a cost of untold suffering at home and abroad through five long years, that British troops are at last on German soil.

“Think first of all this when you are tempted to sympathize with those who today are reaping the fruits of their policy, both in peace and war.”

They suggested that the military be on their guard against ‘propaganda’ in the form of hard luck stories.

Mein Kampf, is not the Koran, but why is there a similarity? For example, according to the manual “Hitler the State is something above the people.  The individual must give up his rights, his liberties, his beliefs, even his religion, for what is held to be the good of the State. But Hilter claims that the Germans are a very special people; they are not only Aryans (by which he apparently meant natives of Northern Europe) they are also the Master Race, and their destiny is to rule and lead all other nations”

Interestingly, if you are Islamic and you attach a bomb to your waste to blow up the enemy and believe you are going to a better place, it seems to me that some propganda is going on in your society.

The British manual notes that the Germans adore a military show. This is typical of the Middle East. However in Nazi Germany everyone had a uniform even the Hitler Youth or the Union of German girls. 

Al Qaeda a Muslim, Islamic operation does not identify itself with a uniform, they are much like an amoeba and you don’t know where the next bomb will go off — perhaps from a child or a baby.

The Brits did not give the Germans any slack, whether they be military or civilians for the actions taken by Hitler.

There are striking similarties to what we are dealing with in the Middle East, some 60 years after World War II.

I don’t believe we should be giving the Muslims any slack.