"John Ringo - The Legacy of the Aldenata 7 - Watch On The Rhine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

young, as you propose to make them again, and when armed and
organized, as you propose to make them again, they were a menace,
fiends, thugs, criminals . . . murderers."

"Not all of them," the chancellor insisted. "Perhaps not even most. Some
were drafted into the war. Others found no place in the Reichswehr and
went, as soldiers will, to whichever military organization they could find
that would accept them. And I intend that no one, not even one, who has
been convicted, or even reliably accused, of a war crime or a crime
against humanity shall be permitted to join."

"They were all guilty of crimes against humanity," the legislator returned.
"Every one of them who fought in the unjust war this country waged
against an innocent world was guilty."

"Were this true," said the chancellor, mildly, "then equally guilty would
be Heinz Guderian, Erich Manstein, Erwin Rommel, or Gerd von
Rundstedt. They actually did the higher level planning for that war. The
people I propose to bring back were low-level players indeed compared to
those famous and admired German soldiers."

"They murdered prisoners!" shrieked another legislator.



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"In that war everyone murdered prisoners."

And so it went, seemingly endlessly. Opponents spoke up; the chancellor
answered mildly. Proponents spoke up, usually mildly, and opponents
shrieked with fury. In the end it came to a vote . . . and that vote was
very close.

***

All eyes turned to the ashen-faced Annemarie Mai as she mounted the
speaker's rostrum. The tie was hers to break, one way or the other. With
the images of split children's skulls echoing in her brain she announced,
"I have conditions."

"Conditions?" asked the chancellor.

"Several," she nodded. "First, these people are the bearers of a disease, a
political disease. They must be quarantined to ensure they do not spread
their disease."

"To get any use out of them, I have to use them as a cadre for others."