Longtime JDL supporter Murray Shapiro recently received an unsolicited letter from a WWII veteran of Hitler's German Army. His letter and Shapiro's poignant response are reprinted here.

Dear Murray!

For a start I do hope that you are not offended by calling on you and using first name. To introduce myself: I am an ex-member of the 116 Panzer Division and now live for the last 40 years in Australia. Working for the U.S. Forces after the war made me apply to emigrate to the States. However, the bureaucracy stretched out for years and I went to Australia within 8 weeks of my application. Here after having all kinds of jobs I joined the Army Reserved similar to your National Guard and transferred over to the Regular army. Because I lost one war, I had the urge to win one and volunteered for service alongside your guys (most likely your kids). Instead of fighting you. But as you know I lost this bloody war also, a no-win situation. My old buddies sent me a picture of you in uniform with a baseball cap. It seems you all had a good time at this meeting and I was asked to write to you as hardly anyone has got sufficient knowledge of English. You must have had a hard time to get any conversation going??? I was informed that there is another meeting planned and I was invited. . . but not one seems to know any details. For me it would mean a 26-hour flight alone from Melbourne to Frankfort but I am 300 km. inland and therefore another 4 hours by car or bus. It would be nice to meet you guys because at least I could talk to you. Being in tanks in Russia but in the winter of '44 I was at RHQ 16 pz Rgt. . . .

Should I get on your nerves with my writing, so throw it away. However, I would be pleased to receive a reply. Because we did not hate each other personally. (How could we. . . we did not know each other but been fighting for our countries?) Here in Australia I had never any ex-soldier being mad at me for being an ex-enemy and the young soldiers respected my experience and acknowledged me as their leader. Enough for today and I would like to send you best wishes to you and your family and greetings from Australia.

Pete Hartun

Dear Pete Hartun:

After I read your letter I was first tempted to take your advice and "throw it away." Then, upon some reflection, I felt impelled to write you an answer. You did not get on my nerves. I am not repelled by your imperfect English. If I were to attempt to write in any foreign language, I can assure you I would do far worse. Nor, in answering your letter, can I claim that I represent American war veterans of World War II. All I can say is that I am giving you one ex-soldier's opinion.

What I can tell you, Pete, is that you irritate me no end by your cold-blooded disregard of the fact that we were not equal in any way, shape or form. True, we were both "fighting for our countries" as you express it; but what your country was fighting for and what we Americans and our Allies were fighting for could not have been more different.

You see, I have read Adolf Hitler's unexpurgated edition of Mein Kampf. I toured Worms and found *one* survivor of the Holocaust there. I have read the record and looked at the films and photographs of the concentration camps. I have two war buddies from the 106th Division (just north of us on the line during the Battle of the Bulge) who were captured. In a few months, if the war had not ended, they would have quickly been starved to death in POW camps. I spoke to an air force friend of mine also incarcerated as a POW (where POWs were reputedly treated better than in German Army stalags) and he told me the first thing that happened after they were thrown into prison camp was to have a German officer enter and demand to know if any Jews were present and to give them up. The American officer of senior rank quickly and courageously rose and shouted, "We do not have any American Jewish officers," saving many lives.

Your army, Pete, was aiding and abetting the Nazi government, the Nazi S.S. and the Waffen S.S. If you had won that war, which you lamented about losing, how would you have treated the losers? We can easily tell by what you had already done to the conquered countries of Europe. We, on the other hand, were fighting for freedom and, as Franklin Roosevelt so aptly put it, "freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly." What did we do as victors? We helped rebuild Germany and Japan. We treated the conquered humanly.

No, Pete, I do not hate; but I do not forget either. Especially do I not hate the German people, or any human of German ancestry. Why, I doubt if we ever would have won the war if it hadn't been for brilliant American commanders of German descent, but who were imbued with the American ideal of freedom for all and humanity for all -- like General of the Army Eisenhower and Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, and many, many others. No, I cannot hate Germans because a German woman saved my life, sparing me the same type execution given to over 100 of my comrades-in-arms by your Colonel Peiper, as I was almost run over by his spearhead on the way from the Ardennes and toward Antwerp. When I asked her why she was helping an American soldier, she held up five fingers sorrowfully in front of my face and said in German, "Ach, I have five sons in the Infantry like you" -- the Deutches Wehrmacht, Pete.

What it takes, in my estimation, to join in comradeship with American veterans, is what happened in Germany beginning with that grand old man Konrad Adenauer, who acknowledged Germany's guilt, did his best to atone for it, led the German nation into renouncing their use of military for any foreign adventures, and joined the world society in peace. I would like to see the same procedure from those who fought against us.

You see, Pete, there is only one thing of which I am prouder of than being a Jew, and that is being an American in a nation which has peace as an ideal and not conquest and subjugation. And if this letter gets on your nerves, Pete, just throw it away.

Murray Shapiro

Formerly S/Sgt, First Machine Gun Platoon, M Company 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th National Guard Division (Pennsylvania), First U.S. Army