The Website of Carlos Whitlock
Porter

THE MYTH OF THE ILLEGALITY OF [GERMAN] CONCENTRATION
CAMPS

To the generations (plural) of people having grown up -- like hot-house
plants -- in the suffocating atmosphere of Holocaust propaganda, it may come as
a surprise to learn that concentration camps are not illegal.

There is nothing in international law prohibiting concentration camps,
even today.

[See footnote]*

The following are a few quotes on the
subject only:

“That, in case of general devastation, the peaceful population may be
detained in so-called concentration camps there is no doubt”.
INTERNATIONAL
LAW, A TREATISE, L. Oppenheim, Vol II, Disputes, War and Neutrality, Longmans,
Green and Co., London, Fifth Edition, September 1935, footnote 2, p 289

“The practice, resorted to during the South African War, of housing the
victims of devastation in concentration camps, must be approved. The purpose of
war may even oblige a belligerent to confine a population forcibly in
concentration camps.”
Ibid, p. 332.

“Concentration camps are practically internment camps for non-combatants…
Such an extreme measure is only to be justified by very extreme circumstances;
in fact, by such circumstances as make concentration not only imperatively
necessary for the success of the belligerent’s operations, but also the lesser
of two evils for the inhabitants themselves…” [emphasis added].

WAR RIGHTS ON LAND, J.M. Spaight, McMillan and Co., London, 1911, pp 307.
(It should be noted that WAR RIGHTS ON LAND, a classic of international law, was
written only 4 years after the Second Hague Conference, which -- in the form of
the Fourth Hague Convention on Land Warfare of October 18, 1907 -- formed the
basis for nearly all the so-called violations of “international law” invoked to
hang the defendants at Nuremberg.).

“If devastation is justified, then some system of concentration is not only
justified, but demanded by considerations of humanity.” [emphasis
added].
Ibid, p 310

“A similar policy of devastation was carried out by the British in the former
Boer Republics. Whole regions were laid waste to prevent their being used as a
base by the enemy, the non-combatant families having first removed from them and
sent to concentration camps. There is no doubt that these camps were essential
for the security of those deported to them, both against natives and to secure
for them the means of life.” (emphasis added).
WHEATON’S INTERNATIONAL LAW,
Seventh English Edition, Stevens and Sons, London, 1944, Vol. 2, WAR. Page 214.

“Devastation on a broad scale was carried out by Spain in Cuba in 1897. The
practice of ‘concentrating’ the civilian population in garrison towns, which
accompanied the devastation, led to protests from the United States which
ultimately formed part of its grounds for war. In 1901 The British armies in
South Africa interned the civilian population in ‘concentration camps’, with the
result of serious loss of life. At the same time the country was laid waste far
and wide as s means of cutting of off the supplies of the guerrilla forces.”

INTERNATIONAL LAW by Chas. G. Fenwick, Third Edition, New York,
Appleton-Century Crofts, Inc., 1948, p. 567.

The same work, one of the most objective, points out the difficulties
involved for a defeated power:

“How could Germany, blockaded by Great Britain during the four years of the
first World War, be expected, even had there been the will to do it, to feed
prisoners according to the standard of its own army which had to bear the burden
of the war, or even according to the standard of its factory workers whose work
was essential to the winning of the war? And if prisoners revolted against the
meagre fare to which they were subjected, disciplinary punishment appeared to be
justified.”
Ibid, p. 575.

The fact is that “concentration camps” were, and are, legal under
international law, and have existed in one form or another in practically all
countries. One reason why they cannot be abolished is because no objective
definition of the term “concentration camp” appears possible. Note that, to J.M.
Spaight, a concentration camp is an “internment camp for non-combatants”, during
wartime only. Whether American Civil War (more correctly: “Secession War”)
prison camps can be assimilated into the same category as “concentration camps”
is entirely a matter of definition.

What has not changed is the spirit of
American-British hypocrisy and contempt for human life. For
example, had it not been for Northern refusal to exchange prisoners, there
wouldn’t have been any Northern prisoners in Confederate prison camps, at
Andersonville or anywhere else in the South. Despite the fact that the problem
was the North’s own doing, and that the Southern armies and population were
starving as a result of the blockade and Union destruction of Southern crops and
infrastructures, Confederate prisoners in Northern prisons were starved
deliberately, in retaliation for the alleged “deliberate” starvation of Union
prisoners in the South.

The commander of Andersonville prison camp in Georgia, Commander Hartmann
Wirz, was a Swiss-German who visited Europe as an official representative of the
Confederacy several times during the war, running the blockade. After the war,
he was indicted for “conspiring with Jeff Davis and his rebel cabinet” to
“render Union prisoners unfit for service through a policy of deliberate
mistreatment and starvation”, and for killing a Union prisoner with a
right-handed blow to the head.

Wirz was subjected to a medical examination during his trial. He was found to
be suffering from malnutrition; and atrophy and paralysis of the right arm as
the result of unrepaired fractures. Wirz was convicted and hanged with a short
drop, taking 14 minutes to die.

Photographs and engravings of Union prisoners from Confederate prison camps
suffering from malnutrition, diabetes, gangrene and cancer [!], in addition to
all the usual contagious diseases, were then printed by Congress and widely
distributed for 30 years after the war to keep the Republican Party in power.
This was known as “waving the bloody shirt”.

Since one lie requires another, and since Andersonville provides a perfect
explanation for what happened at German camps in 1945, the more irresponsible of
the Holocaustians have now come full circle, and are referring to Andersonville
as “America’s Auschwitz” -- for example, http://www.crimelibrary.com/notoriousmurders/classics/andersonville/1.html.

Concentration camps in their modern form are generally thought to have been
invented by General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau, a Spanish General in Cuba, in
1897. Weyler was Spanish, but of Prussian descent, leading to the myth that such
camps were a “Prussian invention”.

The Cuban War of Independence was fought with enormous destruction of
property on both sides. Rebel guerrillas moving along the length of the island
burned Spanish sugar plantations and other property in an attempt to render the
island valueless to Spain; Weyler moved all “loyal” Cubans into “campos de
reconcentramiento”, announcing that all civilians outside the camps would be
treated as guerrillas and shot on sight. The intention was to cut the island in
two and hamper the movements of the guerrillas.

The camps were shut as a result of American protests and Weyler was
recalled to Spain, a concession which failed to satisfy American greed for
Spanish overseas possessions. Weyler served as Minister of War 3 times and died
in 1930; there is a monument to him in Madrid. Modern Cuban sources estimate
25,000 deaths in the camps, down from a propaganda figure of 250,000.

[NOTE: The Spanish point of view is somewhat different. They argue that the
strategy of the Cuban rebels, under the leadership of Máximo Gómez, was to drive
all civilians unwilling to cooperate with the guerrillas into the towns, which
were then to be deprived of food through the destruction of crops. Weyler simply
reversed a situation created by the rebels: all civilians unwilling to cooperate
with the Spanish were to be driven into the countryside, after which the
COUNTRYSIDE was to be deprived of food by the same methods. The rebels could
never have defeated the Spanish and never tried; their only hope was to involve
the United States.]

Following the Spanish-American War, Cuba was granted its independence, while
all other Spanish overseas possessions were retained. Following Filipino defeat
in regular warfare intended to free the country from its American “liberators”,
guerrillas under the leadership of Emilio Aguinaldo continued the war using
irregular tactics. At this point, the Americans imitated the tactics of
“Butcher” Weyler, building concentration camps on the island of Mindanao, “to
protect non-combatant civilians”. The number of civilian deaths in these camps
is unknown.

If, as is usually estimated, 28,000 Boer women and children died in British
concentration camps during the Second Boer War, this amounts to a death rate of
10-20% of the total civilian population in enemy occupant “death camps”. The
only historical parallel to concentration camp mortality on this scale must be
sought in Stalinist policies in the Baltic States. Special taxes were levied
upon “loyal Boers” to enable the British to pay the costs of interning their
relatives. The population of the camps amounted to virtually every woman and
child in the Transvaal and Orange Free States; the western Transvaal, in J.M.
Spaight’s own words, was turned into a “smoking desert” on the grounds of
“military necessity”.

In 1914, with the invasion of Belgium, Britain became the champion of the
“independence and neutrality of small nations”, a chief propaganda aim of the
First World War.

The 1944 Edition of Wheaton’s INTERNATIONAL LAW (published in London) alleges
that the South African Republics “warred against Great Britain” (p. 99), and
that the British went to war to defend the rights of British subjects abroad (a
right never conceded to National Socialists where ethnic Germans in Poland were
concerned).

At Nuremberg, concentration camps were held to be “criminal” (as long as they
were German), while members of resistance groups were held to be patriots and
heroes; shooting or imprisoning them (“Night and Fog”) was held to be
“criminal”.

With the advent of alleged Al-Quaida prisoners at Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo
Air Force Base in Cuba in 2002, it was once again discovered (by the idealistic
Americans) that concentration camps are “legal”, and that irregular combatants
are “criminals”. Where was this knowledge at Nuremberg?

Since Camp X-Ray is “not on American soil”, and since the inmates are “not
U.S. citizens”, they are not protected by U.S. law; but since it is a “domestic
matter”, they are not protected by "international law" either. How very
convenient.

The manner in which international conventions are intentionally drafted in
vague language permitting interpretation in any manner one likes, has been
brilliantly described by G. Lowe Dickenson in THE INTERNATIONAL ANARCHY
1904-1914, Century, New York, 1926 (for example, the Hague Conferences were
never expected to produce any practical results and were ridiculed privately by
all the statesmen involved, pp. 347-358).

That the same is increasingly true of almost all law, is probably obvious to
anyone who has ever been involved in legal proceedings.

Thus, like “weapons of mass destruction” (another undefined term),
“concentration camps” are illegal, immoral and emaciating only when possessed by
our enemies; our own concentration camps are perfectly legal, lawful and
laudable.

All nations intern enemy aliens during wartime. The Fifth Hague Convention
even requires the internment of belligerent troops on neutral soil. How are they
to be interned, if not in “camps”?

That the Jews were “enemy aliens” resident in National Socialist Germany is
apparent from their own many “declarations of war” against Germany, beginning on
March 24, 1933. Yet only a minority of all Jews were ever interned, even during
wartime (the highest percentage occurring in Holland as the result of fears of
an Allied invasion) - a degree of moderation never imitated by the United
States, Britain, Australia or Soviet Russia.

It appears to me that, far more important than the nomenclature of the penal
institution in which one is incarcerated, are the procedures and rules of
evidence according to which one is imprisoned, and the conditions of
confinement. American prison conditions, despite expensive infrastructures, are
among the worst in the world (see NO ESCAPE: MALE RAPE IN U.S. PRISONS, a
378-page report from Human Rights Watch, 350 Fifth Ave., NY NY, 1018-3299 USA,
also available from http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/report.html;
see also SCOTTSBORO BOY, by Haywood Patterson, Bantam Paperback, 1952, a book
which, in many respects -- forced sodomy, prison rackets, slave labour for
outside private commercial firms -- could have been written yesterday,
describing almost any prison in America. If anything, the situation is far worse
as a result of the inversion of racial roles and the abolition of segregated
prisons. When Americans solve their own problems, they will be qualified to
preach to the rest of the world.

Why exclusive attention should be focused on Jewish “suffering” in German
prison camps 60 years ago, is something only the Jews can explain, particularly
in view of the fact that their complaints of hardship are neither unique, nor,
in many respects, even true.
- C. P.

[Footnote] * To verify the truth of this statement, go to

http://europa.eu.int/eurodicautom/Controller

click “Source Language: English”, “Target Language: English”, “Hit List
Only” or “All Fields” (it makes no difference), and search for “convention
concentration camps”, “treaty concentration camps”, or any combination of these
words, for example, “convention concentration”, or “treaty camps”.

The Eurodicautom is an official dictionary for use by the European
Commission, and lists hundreds of treaties and conventions. For example, if you
search for “convention concentration”, you will find many international
conventions relating to concentrations of food additives, etc. But you will find
nothing under “internment camps” or “concentration camps”, and nothing under
“camps”. Try the same with “Treaty”.

FURTHER READING:

KONZENTRATIONSLAGER 1896 BIS HEUTE, Eine Analyse, [Concentration Camps
1986 to Today, An Analysis], by Andrjez J. Kaminski, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1982
(exceedingly extensive bibliography, somewhat marred by wholesale acceptance of
Holocaust propaganda);

FIRST GUIDEBOOK TO THE USSR: PRISONS AND CONCENTRATION CAMPS OF THE SOVIET
UNION, by Avrahim Shifkin, Stephanus, 1980, illustrated by 170 maps and
drawings; the author is an Israeli whose father was murdered by Stalin;

THE BRUNT OF THE WAR AND WHERE IT FELL, by Emily Hobhouse, London,
1902;

WAR WITHOUT GLAMOUR, OR WOMEN’S WAR EXPERIENCES WRITTEN BY THEMSELVES,
1899-1902, Collected and Translated by Emily Hobhouse, Bloemfontein, no date;

THE MARTIAL SPIRIT, by Walter Millis, Literary Guild of America, 1931 (Cuban
guerrilla war tactics; “reconcentration centres”, “camps” and “garrisoned
towns”; anti-Spanish atrocity propaganda);

BELGIAN NEUTRALITY UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW, by Alexander Fuehr, Funk and
Wagnallis, New York, 1915;

JÜDISCHE KRIEGERKLÄRUNGEN AN DEUTSCHLAND. WORTLAUT - VORGESCHICHTE - FOLGEN,
[JEWISH DECLARATIONS OF WAR AGAINST GERMANY - TEXT - PRIOR HISTORY -
CONSEQUENCES], by Hartmut Stern, (available from Arndt Buchdienst, Postfach
3603, D-24035 KIEL, 25 Euros.)

THE GERMAN PRESENCE IN QUEENSLAND, by Manfred JÜRGENSEN, Alan CORKHILL and
Raymond EVANS, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, 1988
(expropriation and internment, etc. of German nationals during First World War).

THE AMERICAN PAST, Roger Butterfield, Simon & Schuster, NY, 1947. Quote
on p. 191: "Yet General Grant himself had refused to save these men by exchange
because -- as he said -- the South needed its soldiers back to carry on the war,
while the North could always get new ones."

OTHER LOSSES, James Bacques.
CRIMES AND MERCIES, James Bacques.

============================

DISCLAIMER:

I EXPRESSLY REPUDIATE ANY AND ALL PHILOSOPHICAL
OR MORAL CONCLUSIONS WHICH MAY APPEAR TO ARISE FROM THE ABOVE ARTICLE. I MERELY
DESCRIBE THE LEGAL SITUATION AS IT EXISTS.

IF BRITISH ACTIONS DURING THE BOER WAR -
TRAVELLING SIX THOUSAND MILES TO INVADE THE BOER REPUBLICS AND STEAL THE GOLD
MINES OF THE TRANSVAAL, MURDERING 10-20% OF THE TOTAL WHITE POPULATION OF THE
COUNTRY IN CONCENTRATIONS CAMPS IN SO DOING, etc. etc. – WERE NOT, AND ARE NOT,
ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW, THEN “INTERNATIONAL LAW” IS A MOCKERY AND A
CYNICAL FARCE.

WE WOULD BE FAR BETTER OFF IF THERE WERE NO SUCH
THING AS “INTERNATIONAL LAW”, BECAUSE, IN THAT CASE, THERE WOULD NO BASIS
WHATSOEVER UPON WHICH TO MAKE FRAUDULENT, SANCTIMONIOUS AND HYPOCRITICAL
ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE GERMANS: IN 1933-45, OR AT ANY OTHER TIME.

CARLOS PORTER
JUNE 10. 2003

On concentration camps in America, see: On the Way to
the Camps at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/haiku/haiku.htm
and other links.

On concentration camps in the Boer War, see: http://www.boer.co.za/boerwar/hellkamp.htm

See also: http://www.prairieghosts.com/campd.html
(Camp Douglas, one of the most notorious Northern prison camps during the
American so-called "Civil War")

http://www.rheinwiesenlager.de/Rheinwiesen.htm
(Rheinswiesen, a REAL "extermination camp" run by the Americans; in German)

http://bbet.org/leesvoer/eisenhower_deathcamps.htm

NOTE: Eisenhower's "death camps" were
illegal under international law, for a wide variety of reasons. They were set up
after the war, in violation of every single treaty relating to
the treatment of prisoners of war. The link is included only to show that this
is the way Americans have always treated people.

There appears to be little or nothing on the Internet about General Weyler's
concentration camps in Cuba; I have seen photographs of inmates from
these camps at photographic exhibitions on the history of Cuba, and they are in
no way different from the photographs of sick and dying inmates at Bergen-Belsen
or anywhere else. In Spanish, the inmates were referred to as
"reconcentrados" and the camps as "campos" [or "centros"] "de
reconcentramiento". Obviously there were no gas chambers in Cuba.

MADE IN RUSSIA - THE
HOLOCO$T
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