Part 7

Breakthrough Armored News Rolling United Press Patton’s Pet New York Sun Rip-roaring Indianapolis Times Rough-necked London Daily Express Roosevelt’s Highest Paid Butchers German Radio American Elite 4th Panzer Division German Radio Invincible London Telegraph Flaming Fourth International News Service Ghost London Times Phantom London Express Fire Alarm London Globe Flying Herald-Tribune (Paris) Great Life Magazine Irresistible New York Times Hard-hitting Washington Times-Herald Colorful Boston Traveler Patton’s Favorite Spearhead Chattanooga Free Press Crack Sunday Empire News Famous Associated Press Fire-eaters London Daily Express Veteran Chicago Sun Immortal Saturday Evening Post Bold New York Times Hard-riding Armored News Patton’s Sunday Punch Armored News Irrepressible Life Magazine Famed Time Magazine Impatient SHAEF Intelligence Bulletin Ubiquitous BBC Radio Patton’s Fourth Armored Associated Press Georgie’s Beloved Fourth Armored New York Post Patton’s Pace Setter Time Magazine Patton’s Rampaging Fourth Armored United Press Fabulous Chicago Tribune Patton’s Prize Fourth Armored Associated Press Glorious Radio Luxembourg Gaffey’s Whirlwind Detroit Free Press Champions Stars and Stripes Fantastic St. Louis Post-Dispatch Patton’s favorite of all divisions Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Romping Associated Press

THE PRESIDENTIAL CITATION

by Gregor Ziemer

_Gregor Ziemer, who wrote the following story, might well be known as the “Man who Stayed for Dinner.” He joined the Fourth Armored Division at Polch, Germany on March 7, 1945. At the time he expected to remain for three days to do some broadcasts for Radio Luxembourg. He liked what he saw so much that he has been with the division ever since._

_The three months he has spent with the Fourth Armored have presented Mr. Ziemer with sights that he always hoped to experience--but never thought he would--as he had lived in Germany for twelve years before the war, both before, and during the Hitler regime. Consequently, Ziemer probably knows Germany as well as any living American._

_During his stay in Germany, Ziemer headed the American School in Berlin, and on his return to the States wrote “1,001 Days of Hitler” and the best seller, “Education for Death,” which later became the movie, “Hitler’s Children.”_

_Since he has been with the division, Ziemer has written a detailed account of defeated Germany for Collier’s magazine, and at present is hard at work on a full length book about Germany, based on his experiences with the Fourth Armored, that he hopes to publish in the near future._

_Although the story that appears here will probably never appear elsewhere in print, we felt that it was a great and sincere tribute from a man who ranks high among the nation’s authors and from a man that we feel we can call a fellow member of our great division. With this in mind we pass it on to you.--Public Relations Officer._

LANDSHUT, GERMANY, June 14, 1945--There are some moments which only the Angel of History should be allowed to record.

There are occasions when pride and memory and gratitude and humbleness are so mixed up that the emotions go dull and words become even less effective than usual.

Such a moment I experienced this afternoon.

I stood out under the blue sky of conquered Bavaria, and saw American boys pass in review--their first review since they had come to Europe a year ago, I saw American flags carried over a field of green, I watched color guards carry banners. I saw a Four-star General pin pieces of blue cloth on the banners. I saw the same general pin a bit of blue ribbon in a small gold frame on the tunic of another general. I heard a band play the “Star Spangled Banner.”

And it was as if a million voices were shouting “Thank You! Thank you for what you have done!” And it was as if the hills of Bavaria were echoing the sound, until the whole world was full of it.

For this afternoon, on that level field outside the old historic city of Landshut, the Fourth Armored Division of the Third Army passed in review and received the Presidential Citation.

“It was a broad field, and there were many boys on it--boys in their best garrison uniforms. And they passed in review with a precision and a compactness and a spirit that amazed even the old veterans of many reviews who were present.

Yes, the Fourth Armored received the Presidential Citation this afternoon.

“Motivated always by the highest esprit de corps and displaying the greatest intrepidity and determination, these units successfully and swiftly executed missions of an exceptionally hazardous nature against the enemy.”

Those were the words they heard, those boys out there on the field. And they knew what the words tried to say--those boys--boys who are now doing occupational work when they would much rather be home, boys who were thinking of their buddies who helped to earn this citation but were not there to see it presented because they are lying in heroes’ graves in France, Belgium and Luxembourg.

Yes, I attended a review in honor of a Presidential Citation. And my heart was so full that a drop could have overflowed it. For more than three months I have been with this Fourth Armored. I have seen them in action. I crossed the Rhine with them at Oppenheim. I rolled across the pontoon bridge with them at Hanau on the Main. I made a detour around that burning half-track at Buchenwald. I crawled across the Bailey bridge that dark bitter morning when the Nazis thought they had us cooped up at Ifta. I rode into Czechoslovakia with them.

I am only a civilian, and know next to nothing about the tactical difficulties the Fourth encountered on this historic odessey across Germany. But I was there when they opened the road blocks, when they cleared out the machine gun nests, when they evacuated their dead.

And today tears rolled down my cheek as I held my hand at salute while the American flags were carried past the reviewing stand where stood General Jacob L. Devers and Major General William M. Hoge. Out on the field I saw them all, the heroes of the Fourth--Colonel Creighton W. Abrams, Colonel Hayden A. Sears, Colonel Wendell Blanchard, Colonel David A. Watt, Lt Colonel Leslie D. Goodall, Colonel Alexander Graham, Lt Colonel Harold Cohen, Lt Colonel Delk M. Oden, Lt Colonel James Bidwell, Lt Colonel Albin Irzyk, Lt Colonel Robert Mailliard, Lt Colonel William Nungesser, Lt Colonel Arthur C. Peterson, Lt Colonel Robert M. Parker, Lt Colonel Neil M. Wallace, Major Henry Crosby, Major William Hunter, Major Charles Kimsey and Major Erbin Wattles. Behind them were their men, of Headquarters, tank destroyers, cavalry, engineers, armored artillery, armored infantry, tank battalions, trains, medics, and ordnance...

And I also saw all the others, who were not there...

I saw them as an American civilian would see them, a civilian who has had the good fortune of having been with them when they earned the Citation, as a civilian who represents the Nation which bestowed it on them.

And because I am a civilian, and because I happen to know what brought the Fourth this recognition, I make myself the spokesman of my Nation at this moment, and I say:

“I wonder if you know what you have done? I wonder if you realize how history will thank you for ridding the world of a fear which a few short months ago was still cowing the entire globe? I wonder if you realize how majestic, how significant your acts, your sacrifices, your spirit are? It was you and men like you who have brought the world a new hope, a new lease on humanity.”

You don’t wish thanks. You didn’t do this because you wanted to be heroes. You refuse to be heroes now. But, please believe me when I say that for generations you will earn the undying thanks of a nation, a world which has come out of oppression to the light as bright as the sun which shone this afternoon over your polished helmets, and the new paint jobs of your tanks on parade.

This thanks the world may not express in words. The world itself is sometimes inarticulate when it comes to expressing gratitude. But History, that timeless element which runs through the strains of life and anchors in eternity, History knows, and History will give you credit.

General Devers expressed it well when he said that on your shoulders--on your young shoulders--rests the hope for the future.

You will accept this added responsibility for the future as you have accepted every order for a new rat-race.

But meanwhile accept the humble thanks of your people; accept the deeply rooted “Thank You” of a nation which has come to know its own strength, when it watched your strength.

For as long as our nation can produce a unit like the Fourth Armored, as long as it can create a spirit like yours--just that long there is no fear for the future of America.

At I looked at you this afternoon, at the faces as they passed quickly by, faces which came from every walk of American life, I knew I was seeing a new America. It is an awakened America--an America which has taken its place in the family of nations--and which will be a watchman of the nations if necessary.

American soldiers marched under a German sky, on German soil, under a German sun, and received a citation of an American President--how impossible it would have seemed a short time ago.

And now I can quote the sacred words of our Savior who died to save mankind, “It is finished.”

But, as for Him the task was not finished, even as He spoke those words, so our task is not finished. But we of the Fourth Armored, we Americans all who know so infinitely more of the world, of mankind, of the human mind than we did a year ago, we fear not the future, we fear no enemy, we fear not ourselves, nor our miserable charlatans and fools who would make America a nation of bickering merchants and a rabble of hypocrites.

We are going home with the bit of blue ribbon in the gold frame over our right breast pocket. And it will always bring us just one message:

“We of the Fourth are not vainglorious. We are not conceited. We are humble and grateful. We are conscious of our duties and our responsibilities--now in peacetime as we were in wartime.

“But never again--NEVER AGAIN--will we be afraid of Fear; never again will we be afraid to attack that which we consider wrong, no matter where it is, no matter what kind of wrong it is. Never again will we permit evil to grow under our feet!”

And so I salute the Fourth--today, every day, until the Last Review is over, until the last one of us has joined those of the Fourth who have gone before ...

And even then, from beyond the grave, we shall keep alive this spirit born in battle, confirmed in peace, made symbolic by our Presidential Citation.

So Help us God!

Amen!

_The following paragraphs are excerpts from a Collier’s story written by Gregor Ziemer. Although the story deals basically with the German people, it is based on Ziemer’s experiences while traveling with the Fourth Armored._

I am writing this on the running board of a confiscated automobile. For what seems a century I have been rat-racing across Germany with the famous U. S. Fourth Armored of Presidential Citation fame.

I, who have been worrying for many months how I could get back into Germany soon after the war, have entered with a spearhead. With my senses keyed to unaccustomed intensity, I crossed the Sauer, the Rhine, the Mosel, the Nahe, the Main, and the Fulda and the Werra--driving a civilian car, in battle khaki, as part of a column of tanks and half-tracks, of jeeps and trucks.

My mind is urging me to get down on paper my first impressions of the defeated Germany. I lived in Germany. I knew the sadistic, the scheming, the malignant Hitler Germany. Now I am getting firsthand impressions of a different Germany: the Germany of the white flags; which shrugs its shoulders, which stares in amazement--and which takes orders.

Overhead a dogfight is filling the blue April sky with staccato bursts of death. Not more than a quarter of a mile away I see the green shacks of the infamous Ohrdruf concentration camp which I have just visited. I have seen such destruction of German war weapons recently that my mind is a shambles. . .

“We had no idea you Americans were so strong.” That is another chorus. A captured general, Edgar Rohrich, to whom I spoke in the small town of Ifta, made that clear. And then he gave me an insight into German psychology. “I’d ask nothing more of life than a chance to command a division like this Fourth which I see here,” he said, in that narrow corridor of the farmhouse where I interviewed him. And if he had such a division? He would continue to fight, and he would continue to attempt to conquer the world, of course .....

From where I am sitting I can still see in the evening twilight the mound of the mass grave of Ohrdruf. I still smell the odor of death. But I also see an old peasant trying to obliterate the traces left on his field by tanks and foxholes. He is looking forward to the harvest many months ahead. It will take almost bucolic patience, almost superhuman endurance, to put Germany back in order, Is it worth it?

There will be many who say no. There will be others who will say yes.

After weeks of rat-racing with the Fourth Armored across Germany which is, for the time being, humble, I can say only this: Let the world decide, but only after a long heart-searching interview with its own conscience, as to which is cheaper--another war or a long, patient, firm, disciplined occupation of this country which we have conquered with so much effort, so much weariness, and at the cost of so many lives.