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In Defense of Hans Reichardt
By L.A. Steel
I was surprised at the responses to Hans Reichardt’s recent article [Why I Went to Washington to Demonstrate Against War with Iraq], which appeared next to my own article on the same topic [The Washington Peace Rally] in the February 7 issue of The Voice. I encouraged Hans to send his article to The Voice and was pleased that it was printed.
Hans is a remarkable man who at the age of 77 still has the stamina and commitment of purpose to stand against the Bush administration's plans to start a war in Iraq. As he eloquently stated in his article, he has seen war and the atrocities of war. He fought in hand-to-hand combat at the age of 18, was severely wounded, and as a POW was nearly beaten to death by his Russian captors. I can empathize with Hans, as I have been engaged in several civilian street fights with knives and fists, but I do not know the effects of suffering from prolonged physical and mental punishment at the hands of Russian prison guards and interrogators, nor can I fathom the tremendous will and strength it took to survive the Russian Front and a near-fatal wound. After his recovery and the end of World War II, Hans emigrated from Germany to the U.S. and faced bigotry, hatred and humiliation—but still he thrived and became a successful builder for over fifty years.
Hans is a peace activist with the heart of a prizefighter. He cannot accept the promotion of hatred and a war for world domination by another mad tyrant. He stands opposed to the unjustified bloodshed of our soldiers and the soldiers of our allies, and to the toll war will take on civilians. (As noted by Time and Newsweek magazines in their February issues, countless innocent citizens of Iraq and America are exhibiting extreme symptoms of stress and panic at the possibility of all-out war on Iraq and terrorist attacks on the U.S.)
We can no more blame Hans for his heritage and being inducted into Hitler’s army to serve at the Russian Front than we can blame our own 18-year-old soldiers—either those who fought in the horrors of Vietnam, Korea, WW II or the Gulf War, or those who now face the weapons of biological and nuclear terror awaiting them in Iraq.
Hans believes in peace and peaceful negotiations. His son served in the U.S. Air Force for 20 years, and his son-in-law is a colonel serving at the Pentagon who barely escaped death on 9/11/01 (the General’s office in which he was attending a meeting was incinerated by the crashing 747 just minutes after the meeting had ended; Hans's son-in-law’s office was adjacent the General’s and was also incinerated).
No, Hans Reichardt cannot be justly criticized for his German heritage or his punishing service in the German army. Veterans of armies around the world have fought and died in countless wars throughout history for causes they do not believe in, drafted into service and sent to battle as cannon fodder and pawns in a global game of chess. These soldiers witnessed and were ordered to commit unimaginable atrocities upon fellow human beings in the name of country and war.
If anyone must be blamed for Hans’s opinions appearing in The Voice, blame me for encouraging him to write the article and taking his picture. I am proud of my friendship with Hans Reichardt and have told him so, and now I am telling all who are reading this article.
Now, as we are entering into another mindless war, 250,000 American veterans are currently homeless due to disability caused by drug addiction, post-war stress syndrome, and countless physical, mental and emotionally debilitating diseases, and many others have already died or are now dying in the understaffed, under-funded, and under-equipped veterans' hospitals around this country. How can anyone justify this war if they consider the hundreds and thousands of wounded veterans who, after valiantly serving their country, will return home to unemployment, permanent physical and emotional disability, inadequate heath care, and more terror initiated by the almost forgotten Osama bin Laden? Before we as a nation in good conscience can justify spending one trillion dollars on assault weapons and the rebuilding of someone else’s country that we have destroyed, we must first take care of and responsibility for those veterans who have already served this country so well.
Those who so blindly stand behind G.W.’s Oil War are making the same mistake that was made by their countrymen in all the other U.S.-backed wars of aggression and colonization, who were only able to recognize their mistakes after it was too late. (Former U.S. Secretary of Defense MacNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War, has stated in his latest book that Vietnam was a great mistake.) Too many Americans are not asking why we need to initiate a war with Iraq. Hans and I and billions of other people around the world are asking—and believe we know—why Bush wants war.
If those who stand blindly in support of war could open their minds and hearts, they would understand and see the catastrophic individual, national and global, physical and economic horrors war creates—and they would also be against this war and all war.
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