Outrage as Great Hunger graveyard in Ireland desecrated

Irish Voice Reporter @irishcentral December 22,2014

Graveyard in Newcastle West, Limerick.

Dismay and a deep sense of outrage have followed the recent discovery that the Famine Graveyard in Newcastle West, Co Limerick has been desecrated, the Limerick Leader reports.

“It is absolutely shameful,” Liam O’Mahony, a member of the graveyard committee said. “This could not be an accident.”

The discovery was made two weekends ago. Two statues, one of Our Lady, the other of the Sacred Heart were found smashed to pieces on the ground beside the altar table.

Also smashed was the Perspex sheeting which protected the statues, which stood in a niche below the altar.

The statues were originally given as a gift to the graveyard by the late Tom Davis, who was a long-time chairman of the graveyard committee. The statues had only recently been repaired and refurbished and the weekend before had been re-blessed as part of the November graveyard ceremonies.

“It is very hard to fathom what is behind this,” O’Mahony said. “This would appear to be blatant desecration.”

Both he and his colleagues on the graveyard committee are appalled at the act.

“Quite apart from being upsetting to the members of the public, this is the graveyard of the most under-privileged, who deserve a bit of respect in death, respect that was not shown them in life,” O’Mahony said.

“The graveyard committee began its work of restoring the graveyard about 20 years ago,” O’Mahony explained. “At the time, it was in a very, very bad state of disrepair,” he added.

“It was a field with a cross in it,” he said, with nothing to mark it as a graveyard. This is the burial ground of the poorest of the poor,” he added.

Roscommon archive reveals in-fighting and criminality among Irish during Great Hunger

Jane Walsh @irishcentral November 27,2014

Strokestown House, County Roscommon home to the Famine archives: Over 50,000 documents shed light on reality of life in Ireland during the Famine.

Academic research of an archive of documents written at the time of the Famine has shed controversial new light on what really happened amidst the Great Hunger. Dr. Ciarán Reilly at Maynooth University has spent the last four years examining over 50,000 documents and letters written in the mid-1800s from Strokestown Park House, County Roscommon, now home to the Irish National Famine Museum.

Despite the long-standing belief that the Famine was largely caused by the ruthlessness of Anglo-Irish landlords and aristocrats, the Strokestown archive reveals the full extent of the in-fighting, criminality and division which existed among local communities themselves as they struggled for survival.

The Strokestown Park Archive is one of the largest estate collections in existence with more than 50,000 documents comprising rentals, leases, accounts, correspondence maps, drawings, architectural plans and photographs. Of particular importance are the papers that relate to the Great Irish Famine.

Dr. Reilly’s book, “Strokestown and the Great Irish Famine”, aims to introduce the reader to the archive and to provide a microscopic insight into the many and varied experiences of Famine for those who inhabited the estate in the 1840s. Documents from the archive, many of which have not seen the light of day since they were generated almost 170 years ago, illuminate the text and provide the reader with a unique insight into Famine Ireland. The existence of the Strokestown Famine archive highlights that there are still major questions to be answered in relation to the greatest social calamity in modern Irish history.

The following is part of the conclusion of Dr. Reilly’s pivotal new book:

“At Strokestown the behaviour of the local community with regard to the provision of relief, the scramble for land and the treatment of women and children challenges any casual assumptions about evil landlords and blameless tenants. Such behaviour may suggest why people were anxious to forget what occurred during the 1840s and 1850s. As Cormac Ó Gráda has noted ‘neighbour against neighbour is hardly promising material for a communal, collective memory’. The Strokestown archive provides a fascinating insight into the behaviour of the local community during the Famine, in particular those who were anxious to gain access to land. As a result of eviction and emigration, land at Strokestown became a much-sought after prize. Large farmers were anxious to get some of the land that was being carved up on the Strokestown estate. For some, as respondents to the Irish Folklore Commission noted, ‘their only ambition was to come by land’. At Strokestown they were facilitated in their efforts by bailiffs, rent warners and other estate officials who were accused of feathering their own nests.

“Issues such as culpability remain contentious when studying the Great Irish Famine. What the Strokestown archive may reveal though is that while other landlords endeavoured to cull and eliminate their Famine papers, in doing so they may have done the local community a favour, as culpability for many actions was erased. At Strokestown, it has suited many that the Pakenham Mahon’s were depicted in the social memory of the Famine as the despoilers of the people, and this has distorted the picture of what actually happened during the Famine. It is interesting then, when accessing the Famine at a local level, not what is remembered but what was forgotten, deliberately forgotten in many cases. Speaking in Boston at the National Famine Commemoration in 2012, President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins reminded us that there is not a single narrative of Ireland’s greatest social catastrophe and that:

“‘It is necessary to revisit, revise and include much that has been forgotten or perhaps deliberately avoided in a great silence amongst the survivors at home and abroad. We must be open to amending what we have taken as the iconic event, the master narrative, and add in some missing bits, drawing on the new scholarship.’

* Dr Ciarán Reilly is a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates at Maynooth University. He is the author of The Irish Land Agent, 1830–60: the case of King’s County (2014) and John Plunket Joly and the Great Famine in King’s County (2012).

For more information on “Strokestown and the Great Irish Famine” click here.

Children’s bones from Irish Great Hunger discovered on Canadian beach

Cathy Hayes @irishcentral January 03,2015

Irish ready to board a coffin ship: Bones of children, aged seven to 12, have been found 150 years after they died on a coffin ship.

Bones of children, aged seven to 12, have been found 170 years after they died on a ‘coffin ship.’

The vertebra and jaw bones are among remains, believed to be Irish children fleeing the Great Hunger, that were discovered in 2011 on Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula, about 500 miles from Montreal, in Canada.Following three years of research Parks Canada has confirmed that the bones belong to children who had fled the Great Hunger in Ireland almost 170 years ago.

During the Great Hunger, one million Irish people died and another two million fled the country in search of salvation and a better life. Ireland’s population figures have still not recovered from this cataclysmic tragedy. Many of those two million who left Ireland traveled to America on “coffin ships,” which themselves were deadly. In fact it’s thought that 100,000 Irish died on those ships.

One of these ships, the Carricks, set sail from Ireland to Quebec City, in 1847. The ship went down off the peninsula and 87 people lost their lives. Their tales was told by the 100 survivors. In 1890 a monument was erected in their honor.

Over 100 years after the monument was built these skeletal remains were discovered 40 yards away. However, without DNA evidence and carbon dating they can not be sure if the victims traveled aboard the Carricks.

What they do know is that the bones are those of children – two of them between seven and nine years old and another as old as 12. They showed evidence of rickets, a vitamin D deficiency, and malnourishment.

The remains were examined forensically by anthropologist Isabelle Ribot and graduate student Rémi Toupin.

Toupin said, “In archaeology, we are there to protect memory…and give people an identity and say who they were.

“We can’t always reach absolute conclusions, but it’s always our goal to go as far as possible in identifying people.”

Pierre Cloutier, an archaeologist at Parks Canada, told the Toronto Globe and Mail, “They are witnesses to a tragic event. You can’t have a more tangible witness to tragedy than human remains.”

Georges Kavanagh, a resident of Gaspé, can trace his ancestors back to the victims and survivors of the shipwreck. He plans to ensure they get a proper reburial.

He said, “I have a link to these people – I almost consider them my family. Who wouldn’t want their ancestors to get a peaceful rest?”

Massacre at Malmédy

War Crimes Trial(May 12 – July 16, 1946

Table of Contents | Background & Overview | Photographs

Following the defeat of the German Army in World War II, the Judge Advocate Department of the Third U.S. Army set up a War Crimes Branch which conducted 489 court proceedings in which 1,672 German war criminals were charged. This was apart from the proceedings against the major German war criminals before an International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. Most of the secondary proceedings conducted by the American occupation forces were held at Dachau, on the grounds of Germany’s most infamous horror camp, between November 15, 1945 and 1948. The most controversial of the Dachau proceedings, and the one that is still discussed to this day, is the infamous Malmedy Massacre case against the Waffen-SS soldiers who were accused of the murder of American Prisoners of War and Belgian civilians during the intense fighting of the Battle of the Bulge.

The Malmedy Massacre, or the shooting of 84 American soldiers who had surrendered, took place on December 17, 1944, the second day of the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, during the summer of 1945, the U.S. occupation authorities rounded up over 1,000 former soldiers in the 1st SS Panzer Division and interrogated them. Seventy-five of them were originally charged as war criminals in the Malmedy case. One of those who were charged was 18-year-old Arvid Freimuth who committed suicide in his cell before the trial started. Charges were dismissed against Marcel Boltz after it was learned that he was a French citizen. That left 73 men who were ultimately prosecuted by the American Military.

The Malmedy case became officially known as U.S. vs. Valentin Bersin, et al. Bersin’s name was the first in the alphabetical list of the accused, and he was the first to be sentenced to death for killing Belgian civilians in the village of Wanne.

The proceedings in the Malmedy Massacre case started on May 12, 1946 and the verdicts were read on July 16, 1946. All of the 73 men on trial were convicted and 42 were sentenced to death by hanging. The list of the names of the 73 men are on a separate page.

Although popularly known as “the Dachau trials,” these court proceedings by the American Military Tribunal at Dachau were not conducted like a typical trial in the American justice system. Guilt was established beforehand by interrogators assigned to obtain confessions from the accused who were then presumed guilty; the burden of proof was on the defense, not the prosecution. A panel of American military officers acted as both judges and jury and the defense attorneys were also American military officers. The judges took judicial notice of the crimes that were allegedly committed, which meant that the defense was not permitted to argue that the crimes had not taken place. Hearsay testimony was allowed and affidavits could be submitted by witnesses who did not appear in the courtroom and thus could not be cross examined by the defense. In some of the proceedings at Dachau, the prosecution witnesses were paid to testify. Some of the accused were not permitted to testify in their own defense. Thus the outcome of the Malmedy Massacre proceedings was never in doubt.

The accused in the proceedings included General Josef “Sepp” Dietrich, commander of the Sixth Panzer Army, who was a long-time personal friend of Adolf Hitler, and Col. Jochen Peiper, the commanding officer of “Kampfgrüppe Peiper,” the armored battle group which spearheaded the German attack in Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive, better known to Americans as the Battle of the Bulge. Peiper’s rank was the equivalent of an American Lt. Col. when he was assigned on December 16, 1944 to lead the tank attack, but after the battle, he was promoted to Colonel. Peiper preferred to be called by his nickname, Jochen, rather than his real first name, Joaquim.

Both Peiper and Dietrich were members of the “Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler,” an SS outfit which was established in 1933 under the command of Dietrich. SS stands for Schutzstaffel which means “Protection Squad” in English. The SS was an elite group that was separate from the regular German army, which was called the Wehrmacht. The Schutzstaffel had started out as a private protection squad, whose purpose it was to personally guard Adolf Hitler. Another branch of the SS was the SS-Totenkopfverbände, which served as the guards in the concentration camps. The SS was a unique branch of the German armed forces; it was a volunteer army which had many divisions made up of recruits from almost every country in Europe. The Waffen-SS soldiers swore an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, rather than to their country, as did the Wehrmacht soldiers.

General Sepp Dietrich wearing Death’s Head emblem on cap

The SS men was more hated by the Americans than the regular Wehrmacht soldiers. The men in all the SS Panzer (tank) divisions wore the Totenkopf or Death’s Head symbol on their visor caps, the same symbol that was also worn by the Einsatzgruppen when they followed behind the troops, killing the Communists and Jews, when the German Army invaded Russia on June 22, 1941, and the same symbol that was worn by the guards in the Nazi concentration camps.

Dachau was selected as the site for the German war crimes proceedings that were conducted solely by the American military, partly because of the abundant housing available at the former concentration camp and the huge SS Training Camp there, but primarily because it was the place most associated with German atrocities in World War II….

Courtroom at Dachau where proceedings took place

Lt. William Perl…was the chief interrogator of the Malmedy Massacre accused….The chief prosecutor, called the Trial Judge Advocate, was Lt. Col. Burton F. Elli…The lawyer for the defense was Lt. Col. Willis M. Everett….Everett was ably assisted by Herbert J. Strong, a civilian attorney who had volunteered to work on the war crimes military tribunals….A panel of high-ranking American army officers acted as both judge and jury. Seven members of the panel are shown in the photograph below. The president of the panel was Brigadier General Josiah T. Dalbey….

Judges at Malmedy, Panel President Dalbey is the fourth man from the left

Of all the proceedings before the American military tribunal at Dachau, the one that was the most highly publicized was the Malmedy Massacre case. The proceedings were filmed and scenes were shown in the newsreels in American theaters. The accused complained that they were being blinded and cooked by the hot lights needed for the movie cameras. This case was important because every school child in America knew the name of the Battle of the Bulge. It was the most decisive battle on the Western front, the battle in which the Allies crushed the enemy army, leading to Germany’s final defeat. Besides bringing war criminals to justice, the Nuremberg and Dachau military tribunals were designed to educate the public, both in Germany and in America, that World War II was “the Good War,” the war fought by the American good guys against the German bad guys, who were rotten through and through, from their evil leader right down to the teenagers who died defending their country. The purpose of the Dachau military tribunals was to establish once and for all that the Germans had committed unspeakable atrocities, which were all part of an evil conspiracy masterminded by Adolf Hitler.

Bodies of American POWs killed at Baugnez Crossroads

The incident which became known as “the Malmedy Massacre” happened at the Baugnez Crossroads in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium on December 17, 1944, the second day of fighting in the famous Battle of the Bulge, where American troops suffered 81,000 casualties, including 19,000 deaths, in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II. The German army suffered 70,000 casualties with 20,000 dead in the month-long battle, which didn’t stop even for Christmas Day. It was during this decisive battle that a number of American soldiers were taken prisoner by Waffen-SS soldiers who were fighting in the battle group named Kampfgrüppe Peiper, which was spearheading the German attack.

The photograph above shows some of the 72 bodies which were recovered after they were left lying in the snow until January 13, 1945, four weeks after they were killed. The reason given by the U.S. Army QM unit which eventually retrieved the bodies was that there was still heavy fighting in the area, which was not true, according to American soldiers who participated in the fighting in the vicinity of the Massacre. According to one veteran of the battle, an American Infantry Captain who is now deceased, the alleged massacre was a cover-up to explain why the U.S. Army waited four weeks to collect combat fatalities after they had been notified about the bodies by local Belgian citizens. Another 12 bodies were recovered four months later after all the snow had melted, making a total of 84 victims.

On the day of the incident, Peiper’s assignment had been to capture the bridge over the Muese in the Belgian town of Huy, and hold it to the last man until General Dietrich’s 6th Panzer Army could cross over it, then rush across the northern Belgian plain to take the great supply port of Antwerp, which was the main objective of Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive. Hitler had personally picked the route that Peiper was to take, but heavy artillery fire from the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division had forced him to take an alternative route through the tiny village of Malmedy, close to the Baugnez Crossroads.

Peiper’s Battle Group never reached its objective, which was the bridge over the Muese. Many of Peiper’s tanks were destroyed by the Allies, and after Peiper ordered his men to destroy the remaining tanks and vehicles, the survivors escaped by wading and swimming across the river. Peiper’s men were forced to retreat on foot, at a killing pace, on Christmas Eve 1944. Out of the 5,000 men in Peiper’s unit, only 800 survived the Battle of the Bulge. Almost one out of ten of the survivors was indicted as a war criminal by the victorious Allies.

Defense attorney Lt. Col. Everett (l), Trial Judge Advocate Lt. Col. Ellis (r)

The Baugnez Crossroads was known to the Americans as Five Points because it was the intersection of 5 roads. There is considerable disagreement about what actually happened at Five Points on that Sunday afternoon in 1944 when the blood of American soldiers was spilled in the snow. The victims were members of Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. The function of this lightly-armed technical unit was to locate enemy artillery and then transmit their position to other units. No two accounts of the tragedy agree, not even on the number that were killed. The official report said 86 were shot and there are 86 names on the Memorial Wall that has been erected at the site, but the Malmedy Massacre trial was based on the murder of the 72 soldiers whose bodies were autopsied after they were recovered on January 13, 1945, buried under two feet of snow.

According to the story that was pieced together by the American survivors, Peiper’s assault unit had destroyed around a dozen American army spotter planes that day and had captured a group of American soldiers, who had been forced to ride along as Peiper’s men continued down the road on their tanks. At the crossroads, the German tanks caught up with the American soldiers of Battery B, 285th Battalion which had just left the village of Malmedy and were traveling the same road, bound for the same destination. At the crossroads, a U.S. Military Policeman, Homer Ford, was directing traffic as a column of artillery vehicles, led by Lt. Virgil Lary, passed through the intersection, headed for the nearby village of St. Vith.

A five-minute battle ensued in which approximately 50 Americans were killed. Some of the Americans tried to escape by hiding in the Cafe Bodarme at the crossroads, but Peiper’s SS soldiers set the cafe on fire and then heartlessly gunned down those who tried to run out of the building. Survivors of the massacre said that the SS soldiers then assembled those who had surrendered after the battle in a field beside the Cafe. There were three eye-witnesses to the event: the owner of the Cafe, Madame Bodarme, a 15-year-old boy and a German-born farmer, Henri Le Joly. None of these witnesses were called to testify at the military tribunal in Dachau.

According to Charles Whiting in his book entitled The Traveler’s Guide to The Battle for the German Frontier, “The Americans huddled in a field to the right of the pub, some of them with their hands on their helmets in token of surrender; others smoking and simply watching the SS armor pull away, leaving their POWs virtually unguarded. It was so quiet that Mme Bodarme and Le Joly came out of hiding to watch what was going on.”

Peiper’s tank unit continued down the road, after leaving behind a few SS men to guard the prisoners. Legend has it that Lt. Col. Peiper, who had an excellent command of the English language, passed the scene and called out to the American prisoners, “It’s a long way to Tipperary.” According to Whiting’s book, Peiper had heard that an American General was in the next village and he was on his way to capture him. General Dwight D. Eisenhower mentioned in his autobiography, “Crusade in Europe,” that there was some concern among the American generals about being captured, although he didn’t mention Peiper by name.

Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper

At the Dachau proceedings, Lt. Virgil Lary was able to identify Pvt. 1st Class Georg Fleps, a Waffen-SS soldier from Rumania, who allegedly fired the first two shots with his pistol. Some versions of the story say that he fired a warning shot in the air when several prisoners tried to make a run for it. Other versions say that he deliberately took aim and shot one of the Americans. Panic ensued and the SS soldiers then began firing upon the prisoners with their machine guns. The survivors testified that they had heard the order given to kill all the prisoners: “Macht alle kaputt.” According to the testimony of three survivors who played dead, the SS murderers were laughing as they walked among the fallen American soldiers and shot those who still showed signs of life. The autopsies showed that 41 of the Americans had been shot in the head and 10 had head injuries consistent with being bashed with a rifle butt. Curiously, most of the victims were not wearing their dog tags, although all of them were identified by their personal effects, since there were no wallets or watches taken by the Germans.

1st. Lt. Virgil Lary points out Sturmmann Georg Fleps

Private Georg Fleps, who is shown in the photograph above, was sentenced to death by hanging, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison. Forty-two of the accused were sentenced to death, but all the sentences were commuted to life after a Congressional investigation determined that there had been misconduct by members of the prosecution team.

(List of the accused)

The photograph below shows one of the survivors, an American soldier named Kenneth Ahrens, on the witness stand as he demonstrates how he held up his hands to surrender. Seated beside him is the interpreter who was responsible for translating his words into German for the benefit of the accused.

Kenneth Ahrens demonstrates how he surrendered

The exact number of soldiers who surrendered to the Germans is unknown, but according to various accounts, it was somewhere between 85 and 125. After the captured Americans were herded into the field at the crossroads, they were allegedly shot down by Waffen-SS men from Peiper’s Battle Group in what an American TV documentary characterized as an orgy motivated by German “joy of killing.” Forty-three of the Americans taken prisoner that day managed to escape and lived to tell about it. One of them was Kenneth Ahrens, pictured above, who was shot twice in the back. Seventeen of the survivors ran across the snow-covered field, and made their way to the village of Malmedy where they joined the 291st Engineer Battalion.

The massacre occurred at approximately 1 p.m. on December 17th and the first survivors were picked up at 2:30 p.m. on the same day by a patrol of the 291st Engineer Battalion. Their story of the unprovoked massacre was immediately sent to General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander of the war in Europe, who made it a point to disseminate the story to the reporters covering the battle. One of the news reporters at the Battle of the Bulge was America’s most famous writer, Ernest Hemingway, who was covering the war for Collier’s magazine. When the gory details of the Malmedy Massacre reached the American people, there was a great outcry for justice to be done. To this day, the Malmedy Massacre is spoken of as the single worst atrocity perpetrated by the hated Waffen-SS soldiers….

SS Lt. Heinz Tomhardt listens as his death sentence is read. Lt. Col. Willis M. Everett, stands on the right.

During the proceedings, the prosecution contended that Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper had instructed his men to fight as they had fought against the Russians, disregarding international law about the treatment of prisoners of war. The defendants testified that they had been instructed to take no prisoners, but they understood this to mean that because they were fighting in a tank unit, they were supposed to send POWs to the rear to picked up by infantry units.

Gen. Sepp Dietrich (11) and Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper (42) were sentenced to death by hanging; General Fritz Krämer (33) was sentenced to 10 years in prison; General Hermann Priess (45) was sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence was commuted to 20 years

Besides the killing of 72 American soldiers at the Baugnez Crossroads, near the village of Malmedy, there were many other charges against the 73 accused. The charge sheet specifically stated that the 73 accused men

“did….at, or in the vicinity of Malmedy, Honsfeld, Büllingen, Lignauville, Stoumont, La Gleize, Cheneux, Petit Thier, Trois Ponts, Stavelot, Wanne and Lutre-Bois, all in Belgium, at sundry times between 16 December 1944 and 13 January 1945, willfully, deliberately, and wrongfully permit, encourage, aid, abet, and participate in the killings, shooting, ill treatment, abuse and torture of members of the Armed Forces of the United States of America, then at war with the then German Reich, who were then and there surrendered and unarmed prisoners of war in the custody of the then German Reich, the exact names and numbers of such persons being unknown aggregating several hundred, and of unarmed civilian nationals, the exact names and numbers of such persons being unknown.”

In all, the accused were charged with murdering between 538 to 749 nameless Prisoners of War and more than 90 unidentified Belgian civilians in the locations mentioned on the charge sheet, which is quoted above. The accused SS men claimed that the civilians, who were killed, had been actively aiding the Americans during the fighting….

The prosecution claimed that General Sepp Dietrich, on direct orders from Hitler himself, had urged the SS men to remember the German civilians killed by the Allied bombing, and to disregard the rules of warfare that were mandated by the Hague Convention of 1907 and the Geneva convention. This meant that all of the accused were charged with participating in a conspiracy of evil that came from the highest level, the moral equivalent of the Nazi conspiracy to exterminate all the Jews in Europe, which was one of the charges against the major German war criminals at Nuremberg.

“It’s so long ago now. Even I don’t know the truth. If I had ever known it, I have long forgotten it. All I knew is that I took the blame as a good CO should and was punished accordingly.”

— Jochen Peiper, quoted in A Traveler’s Guide to the Battle for the German Frontier by Charles Whiting

Lt. Col. Joachim Peiper on the witness stand, June 17, 1946 

The Malmedy Massacre proceedings were conducted like a U.S. Army court martial, except that only a two-thirds majority vote by the panel of 8 judges was needed for conviction. Each of the accused was assigned a number because it was hard to keep the names of the 73 men straight. They all wore their field uniforms, which had been stripped of the double lighting bolt SS insignia and all other military emblems and medals. The proceedings lasted for only two months, during which time both the prosecution and the defense presented their cases. Fearful that they might incriminate themselves on the witness stand, their defense attorney, Lt. Col. Everett, who believed that they were guilty, persuaded most of the SS soldiers not to testify on their own behalf. Col. Joaquim Peiper, pictured above, volunteered to take all the blame if his men could go free, but this offer was declined by the court….

Col. Peiper listens to closing statement with his arms folded 

After only 2 hours and 20 minutes of deliberation by the panel of judges, all 73 of the accused SS soldiers were convicted. Each of the accused was required to stand before the judges with his defense attorney, Lt. Col. Everett, by his side, as the sentence was read aloud.

Waiting for the Malmedy Massacre verdict outside the courtroom 

Forty-two of the accused were sentenced to death by hanging, including Col. Peiper. Peiper made a request through his defense attorney that he and his men be shot by a firing squad, the traditional soldier’s execution. His request was denied. General Sepp Dietrich was sentenced to life in prison along with 21 others. The rest of the accused were sentenced to prison terms of 10, 15 or 20 years.

None of the convicted SS soldiers were ever executed and by 1956, all of them had been released from prison. All of the death sentences had been commuted to life in prison. As it turned out, the Malmedy Massacre proceedings at Dachau, which were intended to show the world that the Waffen-SS soldiers were a bunch of heartless killers, became instead a controversial case which dragged on for over ten years and resulted in criticism of the American Occupation, the war crimes military tribunals, the Jewish prosecutors at Dachau and the whole American system of justice. Before the last man convicted in the Dachau proceedings walked out of Landsberg prison as a free man, the aftermath of the case had involved the U.S. Supreme Court, the International Court at the Hague, the U.S. Congress, Dr. Johann Neuhäusler who was a survivor of the Dachau concentration camp and a Bishop in Munich, and the government of the new Federal Republic of Germany. All of this was due to the efforts of the defense attorney, Lt. Col. Willis M. Everett.

U.S. Army Major Harold D. McCown testified as a witness for Col. Peiper 

Peiper poses for his mug shot at Schwabish Hall prison

Col. Jochen Peiper, the main one of the 73 accused in the Malmedy Massacre Military Tribunal proceedings, was not a member of the Nazi party, although he joined the Hitler Youth as a young boy and then, at the age of 19, applied for admission to the elite Waffen-SS in 1934. (He was a Lt. Col. at the time of the Battle of the Bulge, but was promoted to Colonel afterwards.) Sepp Dietrich reviewed his application and admitted him into the “Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler,” one of the most prestigious outfits in the SS. In 1943, the Leibstandarte das Reich and Totenkopf divisions were formed into the new 1 SS Panzer Korps, which was sent to the Eastern Front. After the Korps won a decisive battle at Kharkow, more SS outfits were formed and the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler was combined with the 2nd SS Panzer Hitler Jugend division to form a new 1 SS Panzer Korps.

Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper, 1 SS Panzer Korps 

Peiper had started his military career as an adjutant to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and the arch fiend who masterminded the Holocaust. Himmler is shown in the photograph below on a visit to inspect the troops at the Eastern front, some time after the invasion of Russia in June 1941. He is the man who is wearing an officer’s cap in the exact center of the photo, behind the tank.

Heinrich Himmler visits a Waffen-SS tank division on Eastern front 

When the case came to the attention of Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall, he ordered a stay of execution for the 12 men who were scheduled to be hanged in just a few days, and then directed General Lucius D. Clay, the highest authority of the American occupation in Germany to investigate Everett’s charges against the prosecution….Royall appointed a three-man commission, headed by Judge Gordon Simpson of the Texas Supreme Court….The other two members of the commission were Judge Edward L. Van Roden and Lt. Col. Charles Lawrence, Jr.

Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper on the Eastern front 

After a six-week investigation conducted from an office which they set up in Munich, the Simpson Commission made its recommendation to Royall. The Commission had looked at 65 mass trials of German war criminals in which 139 death sentences had been handed down. By that time, 152 German war criminals tried at Dachau had already been executed. The 139 men who were still awaiting execution were staff members of the Dachau concentration camp, SS soldiers accused of shooting POWs at Malmedy and German civilians accused of killing Allied pilots who were shot down on bombing missions over Germany. On January 6, 1949, they recommended that 29 of these death sentences, including the 12 death sentences in the Malmedy Massacre case, be commuted to life in prison….

SS 2nd Lt. Kurt Flamm testified on May 27, 1946 

In March 1949…General Lucius D. Clay commuted 6 more of the death sentences to life in prison, but not the death sentence of Col. Jochen Peiper, who was the main person in the Malmedy Massacre case. Peiper did not personally shoot any American Prisoners of War, but he was the one who had allegedly ordered his armored unit not to take prisoners….

Private Samuel Bobyns, a U.S. Army ambulance driver, gets admiring glances
from two women as he tries to identify the accused SS man who saved his life 

The last 6 death sentences of the men convicted in the Malmedy Massacre proceeding were finally commuted by General Handy in 1951, after the fledgling Federal Republic government demanded a halt to the execution of German war criminals as a necessary precondition to rearmament and their cooperation with the Allies in the Cold War against the Communist Soviet Union. In 1955, a Mixed Parole and Clemency Board was set up with 3 Germans and one representative each from the U.S., Great Britain and France, and as a result, General Sepp Dietrich was paroled in October 1955.

But it was not that easy for General Dietrich to escape justice, since he was one of Hitler’s closest associates. Hitler thought so highly of him that he once commented that if he ever had a son, he would want him to be like Dietrich. After he was paroled, Dietrich was tried again by a German court for his role in the execution of 6 SA men in June 1934. As a result of his loyalty to Adolf Hitler, who had ordered the executions, Dietrich rose rapidly in the ranks, although he was a Bavarian peasant who was barely literate. He was convicted by the German court and served 18 more months in prison before he was released in February 1959, due to ill health. Dietrich was a swashbuckling figure who was so esteemed by the Waffen-SS men that 6,000 of them turned out for his funeral, after his death on April 21, 1966 at the age of 74.

Hitler’s favorite general, Josef “Sepp” Dietrich 

General Sepp Dietrich, charged with being a war criminal 

Eventually all 73 of the convicted German war criminals in the Malmedy Massacre case were released from Landsberg prison, including Col. Peiper who was freed on December 22, 1956, the last of the accused to finally walk out of Landsberg….

The bodies of the Malmedy Massacre victims were buried in temporary graves at Henri-Chappelle, 25 miles north of the village of Malmedy. The temporary cemetery was made into a permanent military cemetery after the war, and 21 of the murdered heroes of the Battle of the Bulge are still buried there. A stone wall has been erected as a memorial in honor of all the victims of the Malmedy Massacre near the site of the tragedy.

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Sources: Mitchell G. Bard, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World War II. NY: MacMillan, 1998; Third Reich Factbook; “Obituary: Charles F. Appman / Survivor of Malmedy Massacre during World War II,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (August 30, 2013).

The Strange Life and Legacy of Karl May

His Wild West novels have sold over 100 million copies and have shaped the way millions of Europeans view the American frontier.

BY DANICA TUTUSH

The summer sun sears into the crowded streets of downtown Santa Fe. Tourists meander through the maze of vendors and booths lined with silver and turquoise jewelry, masterful pottery, and stone sculptures that make up the city’s Indian Market. Greetings buzz through the air:

“Yah-ta-hey.”

“Buenos dias.”

“Good morning.”

“Guten Tag.”

Come again? How did German become a part of Santa Fe’s tri-cultural heritage? Part of the answer comes from the nearly two million Deutschlanders who visit the United States each year.

But if you go beyond the figures, it becomes apparent that roots of this Teutonic wanderlust date back more than a century to one of Germany’s best-selling authors, Karl May.

Karl May (1842-1912) was a prolific author and a favorite read of many famous Germans, including Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer, and Herman Hesse. According to the Karl May Press based in Bamberg, his works have sold over 100 million copies across the globe, and his 60 novels have been translated into over 30 languages, including a recent series in Chinese.

“Not all Europeans have read the Bible,” says Vanja Aljinovic, who residesin Santa Fe and read May’s novels translated into his native tongue as a 12-year-old boy in Croatia, “but we have all read Karl May.”

Scholars know May as a storyteller whose intention was to write for children. “That’s one main reason why his stories appear so black and white to adult readers,” says Dr. Meredith McClain, professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. But readers of all ages have been drawn to May’s legendary tales about a noble Indian named Winnetou and his virtuous German blood-brother, Old Shatterhand.

“To me the stories have that universal appeal of good versus evil, like Star Wars set in the Wild West,” says Regina Arentz of Karl May & Co. Magazine, a quarterly based in Cologne, Germany.

Yet it is the story of the man himself that proves almost as compelling.

May was born in Hohenstein-Ernstthal to an extremely poor family of 14 children, and was one of only five to survive infancy. He suffered from malnutrition and temporary blindness as a child.

May survived his childhood and regained his eyesight. His talents and ambition enabled him to attend a teachers’ school where he secured a teaching job.

It was during a Christmas break that May first ran afoul of the law. While visiting his family, his roommate reported a watch missing. He pointed the finger at May.

“He was probably borrowing it,” speculates McClain, “and hoping to impress his family with a sign of his newly achieved position.” May ended up in the slammer for several weeks but even worse, the incident cost him his precious teacher’s license during a politically oppressive period in Germany.

Without a livelihood, May used his wits to survive. He was arrested again and behind bars for several more years, this time for impersonating a police officer in an attempt to confiscate “counterfeit” Deutsche Marks.

May scholars believe his literary seeds began to sprout during his incarceration. “We think he may have read German travelers’ accounts of their experiences in the West and popular novels,” says McClain. The Last of the Mohicans, for instance, was one inspiration. There, in prison, Winnetou and Old Shatterhand may have been born.

In 1874, May finished his prison sentence, then found work as an editor in Dresden, Germany. There he began publishing his first stories like Old Firehand (1875). His first book, Im fernen Western (In the Distant West), was a reworking of this tale and appeared in 1879. Here, readers first encounter Winnetou:

His bronze-coloured face bore the imprint of special nobility.

Pierre Brice as Winnetou, shot in Frmanya Canyon, Croatia (courtesy Michael Petzel, Karl-May-Archiv)

Christopher Frayling, author of Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone(I.B. Tauris, 1998) believes Winnetou was based on the life of Cochise. Old Shatterhand was modeled to be a German superman-cowboy who made his American counterparts look like bumbling fools or brutal thugs. Take May’s explanation of how Old Shatterhand is named in Winnetou:

‘To knock out a bruiser like that with one blow. No mean achievement…!’

‘Shatterhand!’ cried Sam. ‘Not bad! Our greenhorn has a nom de guere at last!’

Scholars have pointed out the errors in his works. He mistakenly assumed that the Llano Estacado resembled the Sahara Desert. He situated Apache “Pueblos” there though none ever existed. And he stereotyped Native Americans quite broadly. But May did write fiction. Just as importantly, he did not venture to the United States until 1908, well after he had penned his Western novels. Fans, however, are also quick to admit that, despite errors, his books captured a real spirit for the West.

“He created a longing for the West in the German soul,” says Michael Petzel, author of Karl May in Film.

As Herman Hesse once noted of May, “He is the most brilliant representative of a truly original type of fiction — fiction as wish fulfillment.”

“In the 1890s May experienced the kind of adoration from the public that we would associate today with rock stars like Mick Jagger,” says McClain. According to a German newspaper clipping from 1904, May’s annual income was estimated to be 160,000 DM (approximately $87,000 today).

But like the beginning of his life, the last part wasn’t free of turmoil. Upon his return from a trip to the Orient in 1900, some of his earliest works, written under a pseudonym, were reissued illegally under his realname. The scrutiny of these works by critic led to further revelations of his unearned “Dr.” title and his time in prison.

After May’s death in 1912, his legacy lived on in part because his second wife, Klara May, had the foresight to create the Karl May Press, according to McClain. Over 80 years later, people around the world can get copies of his books. Between 30,000 to 50,000 people attend his hometown’s annual two-day Karl May Festival, and over 600,000 make their way to annual events in Elspe and Bad Segeberg.

In early ’60s, Winnetou and Old Shatterhand debuted on the silver screen. Shot along the rugged Yugoslavian landscape, German rolled off the tongues of Croatian character actors in scenes that made Spaghetti Westerns look almost mundane. From 1963 to 1968, six films were made and starred Pierre Brice as the brave Winnetou and Lex Barker as the dashing Shatterhand. Other cast members included Elke Sommer, Herbert Lom, and Klaus Kinski.

Yes, May’s Western novels are campy and highly romanticized, but weren’t Hollywood’s first images of the Wild West also this way? The impact of May’s writings are arguably as long lasting and as far reaching as those of any American writer.

Filed under: Art-Entertainment, Books, Authors, Fiction

This article appeared in the September 1999 issue of Cowboys & Indians Magazine

The Real Reason Hitler Launched the Battle of the Bulge

Among a new book’s revelations: Crystal meth was the German army’s drug of choice.

German soldiers cross a muddy road during the Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, which began December 16, 1944, and ended January 25, 1945. PHOTOGRAPH BY U.S. ARMY, THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION, GETTY IMAGES

by Simon Worrall for National Geographic

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 14, 2014

Winston Churchill called World War II’s Battle of the Bulge “the greatest American battle of the war.” Steven Spielberg engraved the 6-week ordeal on the popular imagination with Band of Brothers, which dramatized the attack on the village of Foy by three companies of the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RANDOM HOUSE

Now, British military historian Peter Caddick-Adams is drawing on his years spent reconstructing the epic battle in his just-published book, Snow and Steel: Battle of the Bulge 1944-45. Speaking from a British military base in Germany, he talks about Hitler’s reasons for launching the offensive, why crystal meth was the drug of choice for the Wehrmacht, and what lessons the battle can teach us today.

How did the battle get its name? What was the Bulge?

To begin with, soldiers weren’t sure what to call the battle. It was a German penetration into the American lines, which the Americans had then surrounded and eventually sealed off. The word for that in the First World War was “salient.” But that sounded too formal, perhaps too British. An American journalist was interviewing George Patton. The journalist needed a unique, American-sounding word that could become shorthand for the battle. And the word “bulge” popped into his mind. It was adopted pretty soon after the battle, and it stuck.

Peter Caddick-Adams traces his interest in the Battle of the Bulge to a trip he made to the Ardennes as a teenager in the mid-1970s. It made “a huge impression,” he says.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RANDOM HOUSE

Your interest in the battle began with a schoolboy epiphany. Take us back in time.

I had some friends who restored secondhand military vehicles. One summer in the mid-1970s they invited me to return to the area where the Battle of the Bulge had been fought. We drove in these vehicles, and to make it look right, we put on some khaki, then drove through the little villages of the Ardennes.

I was amazed by the older generation, who came out of their houses and could remember what was by then 30 or so years earlier. You could see by their faces how much it had meant to them. Some of them burst into tears the moment they saw a U.S. jeep.

One farmer led us up a small trail to the top of a hill and showed us where the American and German lines had been. I couldn’t see anything, which was somewhat of a disappointment. Then I kicked idly at a stone. It turned out not to be a stone but an entrenching tool. All of a sudden beneath the undergrowth, when I looked, there were cartridges, bits of helmet, canteens—all the debris you’d associate with a battle. When you’re a teenager, that makes a huge impression.

You say Hitler’s decision to launch the Ardennes offensive was more political than military. How so?

I feel I was breaking new ground by asserting that the decision by Hitler to launch the Ardennes attack—and it’s his alone—is a political one rather than a military one. The traditional view is that this is an attempt to turn around the military situation as it was at the end of 1944. (See a World War II time line.)

I came to the conclusion that this is rather Hitler’s attempt to reassert his personal political control over the German general staff and the entire Nazi hierarchy. It’s a reaction to the von Stauffenberg bomb attempt on his life on the 20th of July, 1944. After that, he hides away. He goes into shock. He doesn’t know whom to trust. His health goes downhill. The genesis of Hitler’s plans to launch the Bulge is his grappling to retain control of the direction of military affairs and prove to the Third Reich that he’s still the man at the top.

A fascinating section in your book explains the mythological and cultural significance of forests to the German psyche. How did the Ardennes campaign fit into this?

Again, I think I was breaking new ground here. I wondered why Hitler had specifically chosen the Ardennes. It’s his plan, and everything about it had to have significance. Therefore, I wondered if there was more to the Ardennes than simply a region where the Allies were weak. I went back to Hitler’s pronouncements, his beliefs, and his fascination with Wagner. In Wagner, a huge amount of the action takes place in woods and forests. This taps into the old Nordic beliefs and gods—that woods are a place of testing for human beings.

If you look at the whole Nazi creed, the false religion that Hitler and the SS created, woods and forests crop up time after time. Even the code name for the offensive, Herbstnebel—Autumn Mist—has all sorts of Wagnerian connotations. Wagner uses mist or smoke to announce the arrival of evil. So it was no accident that the attack against the Americans was launched from large forests, in heavy fog.

U.S. infantrymen with General George Patton’s Third Army advance at dawn on German gun positions to relieve encircled airborne troops at Bastogne on January 7, 1945.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BETTMANN, CORBIS

Hitler had a very low opinion of the Americans as a fighting force. Why?

Hitler thought the Americans were a mongrel force made up of all sorts of different nations. But that’s a blatant misreading of history. For a start, Germany itself is a mixture of all sorts of different nations. Huge numbers of Americans who went to fight in the Ardennes in 1944 had also come originally from Germany. He also overlooks that so many great American figures were originally German. Eisenhower originally came from the Saarland. Pershing, the American general in World War I, is a German name.

All Hitler’s knowledge of the United States is from reading cowboy books written by a charlatan writer called Karl May, who’d never actually been to the United States. So Hitler is remarkably ill-equipped to make these sweeping generalizations about the Americans—particularly about their ability to mass manufacture, which is one of the things that bring about his downfall. The Germans are going into battle barely better equipped than they were in 1914, with upwards of 50,000 horses. By contrast, the Americans are fully mechanized.

A figure who strides out of the pages of the book is the cigar-chomping American general, Patton. In what ways did he typify the American character—and fighting tactics?

It’s difficult to discuss the Bulge without referring to George Patton, with his cigars and trademark pearl-handled revolvers. He is so American, from a British point of view. What do I mean by that?

Well, he had unbounded confidence. And, I think, one thing that marks out successful captains in history is a superb confidence that almost borders on arrogance. That’s something Patton has. He would always say that a perfect plan is not as good as an imperfect plan that’s executed violently and immediately.

One of the key aspects of the battle is the speed with which he can reorientate his Third Army, which is to the south of the Bulge, and get them to counterattack the Germans by moving north. To turn a whole army around on its axis by 90 degrees and move north in the middle of winter at almost no notice is almost unheard of.

But Patton achieves this within a couple of days—much to the amazement of the Germans and even more to the amazement of his fellow Allies. He says he will do it. Most people don’t believe he can. Yet, my goodness me, he delivers, and delivers in spades.

Patton was one of the most aggressive and able generals of World War II. He projected “a superb confidence that almost borders on arrogance,” author Caddick-Smith says.

PHOTOGRAPH BY CORBIS

On the other side, one of the most compelling characters is the German Panzer commander, Joachim Peiper. He was nasty bit of work, wasn’t he?

Joachim Peiper was a 28-year-old true believer in the Nazi faith. His whole life had been acted out in the shadow of Hitler and the Third Reich. He’d come to prominence early. He was a colonel in the Waffen SS and worked as an adjutant to Himmler. He was involved in a whole series of war crimes on the eastern front, where he taught his men to regard Russian lives as being worth nothing.

He and his men bring this mentality to the western front when they fight in the Bulge in 1944, and it’s they who perpetrate the famous massacre just outside the town of Malmedy.

I also wanted to try and strip the gloss off Joachim Peiper as a brilliant military commander. One of the points I make in the book is that he had passed his best in a military sense. His performance wasn’t nearly as good as he claimed it to be. When I went back through the records, I found he’d lied about the progress he’d made during the Battle of the Bulge.

One of the things that most surprised me was your contention that the use of crystal meth was widespread in the German army.

The Germans routinely encouraged their soldiers to take what we would now call crystal meth before battle. It would whip them up into a fury and may explain some of the excesses they committed. It’s a way of motivating scared young men. And some of the Germans are very young indeed. I found lots of evidence of 16-year-olds being put into uniform and sent into battle.

So I think you’re reaching for every possible technique to exaggerate your soldiers’ combat performance. This wasn’t just an SS thing. The German army was not below stooping to use drugs to increase its soldiers’ effectiveness on the battlefield.

What are the most important lessons, militarily and personally, you took away from studying the battle?

Writing military history is fascinating because you never end up where you think you will. One of the things I took away was how much the Allies deluded themselves as to the situation of their opponents—how much they believed, because they wanted to believe, that the Germans were a spent force. The Battle of the Bulge proved exactly the opposite. And we do this time and time again. We under-appreciate the effectiveness of our opponents even today.

Personally speaking, I was fascinated and humbled by the resilience of the soldiers, particularly the Americans, I met, whether personally or through their letters and diaries. I have seen action in combat zones myself. But I could have no conception of the horrific, freezing conditions that the American soldiers coped with and overcame.

What I took away is that soldiering is not about planning. It’s all about how you react when something goes wrong, when the wheel comes off—how quickly you can turn things around, how resilient and deep your resolve is. That was demonstrated in spades by the U.S. Army at the Bulge. And that is deeply humbling and very instructive.

How many Bulge veterans are alive today?

There are precious few. Of the several hundred thousand that took part in the Battle of the Bulge, only a couple of thousand are now left with us. Most of those are fading fast, which is one of the reasons I wanted to write the book for the 70th anniversary. I knew that if I left it any longer, there’d be no one left around to say, “Yes, that’s how it was,” or “No, the author’s talking a load of rubbish.” [Laughs] I wanted to write it as a tribute to those who’d fought in the campaign, while there were still some of them left alive to appreciate my comments.

Simon Worrall curates Book Talk. Follow him on Twitter or at simonworrallauthor.com.

New book tells the story behind Hitler’s Battle of the Bulge

A new book by British military historian Peter Caddick-Adams called “Snow and Steel: Battle of the Bulge 1944-5” reveals Hitler’s real thinking behind his Battle of the Bulge strategy, as well as the inside story on what made the German soldiers tick, and the lessons learned from America’s bloodiest battle of World War II.

The battle started with German troops’ infiltration of American lines, which the Americans then surrounded and eventually sealed off.

Peter Caddick-Adams’ interest in the battle started when he visited the Ardennes region where the battle took place as a teenager with friends in the 1970s. During his visit, he spoke with the locals who remembered the battle. A farmer showed him where the German and American lines had been where they found all manner of military artefacts just below the surface of the ground. They found shells, uniform parts, water flasks and lots of other military objects.

Peter believes Hitler’s decision to attack American troops was a political decision rather than a military one to turn the war around. He believes Hitler wanted to reassert his authority over his generals who had begun to take matters into their own hands.

Hitler had a disrespect for American troops since they were made up of a myriad of soldiers from all over the world, and he was trying to create the Aryan race of which he believed to be superior Europeans.

Peter talks of General George Patton as being aggressive and having limitless confidence bordering on arrogance. He led the American troops swiftly turning them from south to north in order to counterattack the Germans all within a few days.

Peter also discusses the German Panzer commander Joachim Peiper, a 28-year-old Nazi faithful. He was involved in many war crimes and fostered the disregard for Russian lives with his troops. This is reflected in the Malmedy Massacre where almost 90 American soldiers were captured and killed, the National Geographic reports.

Peter has asserted that the German troops widely used crystal meth, which was encouraged in order to get them into a fury and to motivate them before battle. The Germans even had soldiers as young as 16 going into battle.

The Battle of the Bulge was initially a misjudgment on the allied side that the Germans were losing the war. Peter believes the allies underestimated the Germans. Peter says he still has no idea of how the soldiers survived the horrors and freezing conditions of the battle.

Today, there are about 2000 Battle of the Bulge veterans. Peter took the opportunity while he could still discuss the battle with the survivors to write the book and commemorate their actions on the battle’s 70th anniversary.

Memorable moments to remember from The Sunday Game this year

Donaghy roaring at Brolly, Martin McHugh’s description of the Gooch and a couple of brilliant All-Ireland final promos.

IT’S THE LAST Sunday of 2014 and one sports programme that again commanded a fair bit of attention during the year was the staple summer offering that is The Sunday Game.

There was plenty colour, controversy and debate to create some memorable moments.

Here’s a few memorable moments from the 2014 production.

*****************

Colm Cooper popped into the studio to name the three toughest opponents from his career

The debate over the future of a dual player

Martin McHugh called Colm Cooper a ‘two-trick pony’

Seamus Hickey’s interview after losing Kilkenny was raw, honest and emotional

Donal Óg Cusack passionately outlined Cork’s hurling crisis after the loss to Tipperary

Marty Morrissey did the Ice Bucket Challenge in Croke Park

Kieran McGeeney put Brolly, Spillane and O’Rourke under the spotlight for the same cause

‘The Wild Atlantic Way’ promo before the All-Ireland football final

The ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ promo before the All-Ireland hurling final

Kieran Donaghy called out Joe Brolly after Kerry were crowned champions

‘The Colours of the Summer’ promo before the season throw-in

The reaction to Anthony Nash’s penalty against Waterford

 Pat wouldn’t let Joe finish his point at half-time of Dublin against Donegal

Joe Brolly praised systems

Pat Spillane dismantled systems

And James O’Donoghue had banter about Donaghy and Twitter

Best players of 21st century never to win an All-Ireland

All are big names and great stars of modern game but they retired from football without the rewards their talent deserved at top level

by Liam Kelly

Croke Park, the third Sunday in September, the clamour of the crowd, the acclaim of the supporters, the speech as the captain accepts the Sam Maguire Cup from the president of the GAA and raises it high in the air.

You’re a winner, your county are champions, the All-Ireland title win goes down in history for as long as the game is played.

This is the image that fuels the spark of motivation of budding young players. They want to ‘be’ Colm Cooper, or Bernard Brogan or Michael Murphy in their pick-up games.

They want to be winners like these heroes, they want to know the feeling that goes with success in an All-Ireland-winning team.

It has ever been thus, and it always will. Many, of course, dream the dream.

Precious few get to live it, and in these modern times of unreal levels of dedication, you have to wonder if the strongest counties will continue to dominate at the highest level, particularly with the ‘back door’ allowing a second chance if one of the big sides has a mishap and comes a cropper at provincial level.

Since the dawn of the 21st century, the championship has been played in 15 seasons. Kerry have brought the Sam Maguire back to the Kingdom on six occasions since 2000, including the most recent campaign.

Mickey Harte’s Tyrone took the trophy to the opposite end of the country three times during that period.

The Dubs have won twice, and captains of Galway, Armagh, Cork and Donegal took the walk of glory up the hallowed steps of the Hogan Stand to the winners’ podium once each.

Seven counties, seven sets of football panellists, in 15 seasons, leaving 25 counties on the outside looking in. And in those counties were players who, but for an accident of birth, would have been good enough to win an All-Ireland, and there are some who many football followers would feel deserved a winner’s medal.

We hear plenty about the dedication of the footballers who become national icons and who are feted as heroes of the game.

Lip service is often paid to those who ply their footballing trade in counties which are never going to enjoy the strength in depth or level of overall talent to allow them reach the pinnacle.

But in every county, there are players who shine a light, guys who earn the respect of opponents and supporters for their star quality, footballers who, if the GAA had a transfer system, would be snapped up by the bigger teams.

There is recognition for a good number of them via the All Stars, and selection on inter-provincial teams which is something highly prized by many players, even if the former Railway Cup series is pushed into a backwater.

The pros and cons of the Compromise Rules have given rise to some heated debate, particularly in recent weeks, but again, the international matches with Australia provide opportunities for footballers from ‘non-winning’ counties to sample the big time atmosphere.

OPPORTUNITIES

The reality is that only one team can win the championship each year and it’s fair to say that the worth of a player cannot, and should not, be measured solely by whether he has an All-Ireland winner’s medal on the mantelpiece.

Indeed, the sheer weight of statistics dictate that there are many more players who end their career without a Gold Cross than otherwise.

Benny Coulter’s recently announced retirement prompted a reminder of players who have graced the playing pitches of the GAA, including Croke Park, and who never got their hands on the Sam Maguire Cup.

Coulter and his Down team-mates came close by reaching the 2010 final via the qualifiers only to fall at the last hurdle to a Cork team which had threatened a breakthrough and eventually made it that year.

Coulter gave it all he had for 15 years and leaves us with many great memories, as do so many other players who no longer perform at county level.

In honour of at least some of those retired players who were good enough to win an All-Ireland but were not fortunate enough to do so, we have put together a selection which reminds us of some illustrious talent of the last 15 seasons.

GOALKEEPER

Brendan McVeigh (Down)

In goals, there are strong claims for stalwart shot-stoppers such as Gary Connaughton of Westmeath. Connaughton won his Leinster medal with the Lake County and had all the dependability and agility you could wish for in a ‘keeper. That said, McVeigh of Down just shades the verdict, as he could match most, if not all, goalies in the country in the basics, and tested his mettle on the big stage of an All-Ireland final.

RIGHT CORNER-BACK

Sean marty lockhart (Derry)

Strong, tough, resilient, a player that forwards knew would make life difficult for them, Lockhart served the Oak Leafer so well and for so long – winning an All Star in 1998. Mention must also go to John Keane of Westmeath, one of only three Lake County players to get an All Star award.

FULL-BACK

Barry Owens (Fermanagh)

Not many people knew he had serious heart surgery as a 13-year-old and that he had a further heart operation in later life. Owens also had to deal with bad ‘ordinary’ injuries but defied all odds to become a talisman for his county and won two All Star awards.

LEFT CORNER-BACK

Joe Higgins (Laois)

Defenders don’t command the glamour or the attention lavished on forwards, but Higgins was appreciated by aficionados for his tenacious and precise tackling and top-quality defending. Played on the International Rules team and got an All Star in 2003.

RIGHT HALF-BACK

Aaron Kernan (Armagh)

His recent announcement of his retirement from inter-county football was greeted with much surprise. Intelligent and adaptable to the demands of the modern game, he did his defensive work but always offered a threat going forward at the right time.

CENTRE half-BACK

Glenn Ryan (Kildare)

One of the great centre-backs, Ryan was an inspirational defender and leader with Kildare. Teak-tough, dedicated and physically very strong, he never let the Lilywhites down.

LEFT HALF-BACK

Kevin Cassidy (Donegal)

Cassidy will always be remembered for that iconic point that edged Donegal home against Kildare in extra-time of the 2011 quarter-final but the infamous fall-out of his contribution to Declan Bogue’s ‘This is Our Year’ book cost a fine footballer his shot at glory the following year.

MIDFIELD

Dermot Earley (Kildare)

At age 20 Earley lined out at wing-forward in the Sam Maguire Cup decider of 1998. The Sarsfields powerhouse must have thought the chance would come again but fate decreed otherwise. He went on to become one of the outstanding midfielders of his generation. Tall, mobile, strong, he became a mainstay for the Lilywhites.

MIDFIELD

Ciaran Whelan (Dublin)

‘Whelo’ would be in any team of great players who have never won the All-Ireland. Dynamic, strong in possession and very good going forward, time just ran out for a player who was inspirational and a real driving force for the Dubs. Six Leinster medals and two All Stars are his career highlights. Unfortunate that he came on the scene in 1996 and retired in ’09.

RIGHT HALF-FORWARD

Johnny Doyle (Kildare)

Free-taker par excellence, but also a clever, hard-working forward who got even better as he got older. Deserves his place of honour in the Kildare football story.

CENTRE-FORWARD

Eamonn O’Hara (Sligo)

Played on the Sligo senior team for 19 years. Equally at home at half-back, midfield or forwards, O’Hara is justifiably rated as one of the best players to represent his county, and would have got a place in any county team in the country.

LEFT HALF-FORWARD

Dessie Dolan (Westmeath)

His football skills, his will o’ the wisp movement, his consistency over such a long period and ability to find space, plus his scoring rate ensure that Dolan ranks among the finest forwards ever to play the game.

RIGHT CORNER-FORWARD

Declan Browne (Tipperary)

A premier player for the Premier County, Browne was widely recognised as one of the most stylish and effective forwards in football. Possessed a magical array of skills which earned two All Stars that were fully deserved.

FULL-FORWARD

MattY Forde (Wexford)

Prolific with either foot, Forde was a joy to behold with ball in hand, and was the first name on any Wexford manager’s team-sheet. The Model County teams that he played on gave the Dubs some torrid times in Leinster but could not make that big breakthrough.

LEFT CORNER-FORWARD

Benny Coulter (Down)

And this is where we started, with Coulter’s retirement. A top-class forward, Coulter gave his all for Down during a career lasting 15 years. Never won an Ulster medal and rounded off his inter-county career with regrets about that 2010 missed opportunity for the Mourne men

SUBSTITUTES

Goalkeeper: Gary Connaughton (Westmeath)

Defenders: John Keane (Westmeath), Anthony Rainbow (Kildare), Aaron Hoey (Louth), Brian Lacey (Kildare)

Midfielders: Paddy Keenan (Louth), Enda Muldoon (Derry)

Forwards: Paddy Bradley (Derry), Ciaran McDonald (Mayo), Trevor Mortimer (Mayo), Danny Hughes (Down)

Indo Sport

5 breakout Gaelic footballers from the 2014 season

Players from Kerry, Donegal, Galway and Dublin caught the eye this year.

IT WAS A Gaelic football year where Diarmuid Connolly, Michael Murphy and Kieran Donaghy further embellished their big-name reputations.

But 2014 also saw some new names come to the fore and take centre stage.

In no particular order, here’s five who had a breakout year.

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1. Paul Murphy (Kerry)

Not content with having a Tommy Walsh each, Kerry and Kilkenny now both have Paul Murphys too and the Rathmore man settled into Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s defence with the minimum of fuss. Comfortable in either the full- or half-back lines, his performance in the All-Ireland final won him the man of the match award.

Barely 23, he developed well at UCC under the guidance of Billy Morgan and his future looks mapped out as the latest in a long line of Kerry defenders who do their job quietly but effectively.

Kerry’s Paul Murphy

Source: Morgan Treacy/INPHO

2. Ryan McHugh (Donegal)

When Mark McHugh left the Donegal panel after the NFL Division 2 final loss to Monaghan, few could have foreseen that the county’s number 12 jersey would be filled by another of Martin’s sons come the end of the year.

Even if they did, “the end of the year” was probably expected to be July or August, but Donegal regained Ulster with a flourish with Ryan featuring.

He announced himself to the nation with two goals against Dublin the All-Ireland semi-final. A more than deserving recipient of the Young Footballer of The Year Award.

Ryan McHugh celebrates Donegal’s win over Dublin.

Source: Donall Farmer/INPHO

3. Shane Walsh (Galway)

The glory days of the turn of the millennium probably seem like an age away for Galway folk, but the All-Ireland U21 wins of 2011 and ’13 offer the hope of a bright future. A first senior quarter-final appearance in six years shows progress from 2014.

Central in this run, and last year’s U21 victory, was Shane Walsh, with the Kilkerrin-Clonberne man scoring five points in the qualifier win against Tipperary, one of them of the highest order.

The Tribesmen’s loss to Kerry in the last eight means that he still hasn’t won in Croke Park but that will surely change soon. Second-highest championship scorer, behind only Cillian O’Connor.

Shane Walsh starred during the summer for Galway

Source: James Crombie/INPHO

4. Cormac Costello (Dublin)

Picked out as a star of the future from a young age, the 20-year-old – who has won All-Irelands at minor and U21 level – was given his senior debut at the start of the league.

He worked his way into a starting championship spot after a series of impressive performances off the substitutes’ bench, including 1-5 against Wexford.

Unfortunately for the Whitehall Colmcille clubman, that maiden start came on a day to forget for Dublin as they were well beaten by Donegal and he was substituted. It’s unlikely he’ll experience too many other days like it.

Dublin’s Cormac Costello

Source: Donall Farmer/INPHO

5. David Moran (Kerry)

An odd choice perhaps, given that he is 26 and made his debut for Kerry in 2008, but injuries have plagued the Kerins O’Rahillys man and he must have wondered himself if he would ever get to make an impact in the green and gold.

While he started against Clare, he was a sub in the Munster final win over Cork and again against Galway in the All-Ireland quarter-final, where a second-minute injury to Bryan Sheehan allowed him an avenue back into the team.

It was an opportunity he took with relish, putting in powerhouse performances against Mayo (twice) and Donegal as Kerry regained the All-Ireland. As a result, he won his first Allstar.

Kerry’s David Moran lifts the Sam Maguire.

Source: Morgan Treacy/INPHO