Talk:Metgethen massacre

Latest comment: 8 years ago by WerWil in topic unreliable witness

unreliable witness

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While it may well be that the murder of civilians occurred at Metgethen, there appears to be problems with the "eyewitness" account of Capt. Sommer [which is actually NOT an eyewitness account, since Sommer by his own admission wasn't in Metgethen until 4 weeks after the alleged incident], to wit: Sommer states that bruising from "beatings" was clearly visible - extremely unlikely that this would be discernible on corpses left to exposure for 4 weeks; the Germans recaptured Metgethen on February 19, Sommer arrived on February 27 [over a week later], and a large number of civilian corpses were still unburied at that time? This also seems unlikely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.242.183.107 (talk) 23:36, 14 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

Ok its old, but remember: It was February in eastern Germany, that means temperatures of below -20 °C. I guess it is no Problem to see even older injuries at deeply frozen bodies. To the other point: There were heavy fightings around. Tens of thouthands were left unburied at all and the soil was deeply frozen. To me it seems not unlikely that this bodies were still unburied some days later.--WerWil (talk) 00:22, 9 May 2016 (UTC)Reply

Metgethen

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A suburban village along the Königsberg - Pillau railway line. Located 10.4 km west of Königsberg Hauptbahnhof (Hbf). Metgethen was one terminal station of Königsberger local suburban railway passenger trains. These trains running from / to Königsberg Hbf and Königsberg Nordbahnhof (10.0 km) were usually operated by accumulator powered serie AT railcars to 1944. This info just to locate the village. It was served on Sundays in summer 1939 by 31 passenger trains. Weekdays 38 trains in both directions. Quite busy railway station. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.113.112.209 (talk) 20:45, 8 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

strange

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The introduction claims "was a massacre of 36 German civilians". But the further Text don't know this number. There are 32 and 18 mentioned. How became this the 36? And the citations of Sommer are strangely chosen. His testimony has to be read with doupt, no question about that, but why do you find "twelve women and six children" reliable but his testimony of about 3.000 found bodies (Hermann Sommer: Maschinenschriftliche eidesstattliche Erklärung (15. Februar 1951), in: Bundesarchiv: Vertreibung und Vertreibungsverbrechen. Bonn 1989, S. 146f) including many ukranian forced workers not worth to mention at all? Is that a kind of censorship?--WerWil (talk) 18:55, 8 May 2016 (UTC)Reply