Being instructed on crimes having been committed by the Spaniards during their discovery and colonization of South- and Central America, you begin to shudder. It's unimaginable what happened there, and what people can do to other people. On the other hand maybe you think - as a German -, with us and with our people this would not have been possible at those times. Well, far amiss! Let's listen in this respect to an incorruptible witness:
"Bartolomé de Las Casas, 1474 - 1566, Spanish member of the Dominican Order and missionary for the indians. Beginning in 1515 he worked as missionary in Central America, but he failed because of the attitude ot Spanisch officials and businessmen, being hostile to the indians. In 1542 he pushed through the 'New Laws' with Charles V. (amongst others ban of slavery, equality in taxation of indians and Spaniards); starting in 1543 he was bishop of Chiapas (Mexico), and concerned with the realization of the laws; his enemies made him fail. He proposed the importation of negro slaves to relieve the indians. His most important works 'Historia general de las Indias' (published in 1951), 'De unico vocationis modo' (published in 1942) are of central value for the history of the discovery of Central America, for the theology of missionaries, and generally for the assessment of foreign cultures." (Meyers Großes Taschenlexikon, German encyclopedia)
I am quoting: "Las Casas, Bartolomé‚ de: Short report on the devastation of the West Indian Countries. it 553. Insel Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1981." (German edition, translated by me)
Now unfortunalety we must learn, also German businessmen were involved in the colonization of Central and South America, and, alas, they behaved even more brutally than the Spaniards. Venezuela:
"... certain German businessmen ... They entered this country with a little more than three hundred men. There they found inhabitants as gentle, lambs, even much gentler than all of the indians of this area, before they were ill-treated by the Spaniards. But me bethinketh, they raged far more cruelleramongst them than all barbarians already mentioned; well, more brutishly and furiously than the most blood-thirsty tigers and enraged wolves and lions. By reason of their stinginess and their greed they acted far more ravingly mad and blindly than all of their predecessors, and they devised still more atrocious means and ways in order to extort gold and silver from the native people..." (Las Casas, p. 85)
The Germans: "These confirmed devils wasted, destroyed and depopulated one very fertile stretch of land of more than four hundred miles. ... Here several ethnic groups and their special languages were totally eradicated, so no one at all ofthem was left over to talk with; except, some of them would have hidden in caves or in the interior of the earth, in order to escape from the pernicious butchering knife of the foreigners. They killed and strangled, to my opinion, more than four to five millions of this innocent people. ... Yes, even now, till today, the strangulation does not end. ... You can conclude from these facts what caused the giant depopulation of which I told above." (Las Casas, S. 86)
This, as described, everywhere is valid with respect to the natives (their naivete and trustfulness they have bitterly to pay for). But as well, on the other hand we experience Spaniards and Germans murdering and strangling uniformly:
"... in all of the provinces where they arrived the inhabitants greeted them, they welcomed them with songs and dances, and they gave them a lot of gold as a present. As a way of saying thank you the Christians made them jump over theblade, and they smashed them to pieces in order to terrify thecountry." (Las Casas, S. 87)
And raging and killing doesn't come to an end. "... the tyrannical commander of the Germans let shut a lot of people in a house of straw, and then he ordered to smash them to pieces. As at the ceiling of the house there were some joists,so many of them climbed up, to escape the murderous sword of these merciless people, or rather beasts. However their satanic commander let set the house on fire, and so all of those being left over, were burnt alive." (Las Casas, S. 87)
How "religious" are the murderous stealing and burning Germans in South- and Central American areas? The German governor is a heretic and member of the Lutheran church. Venezuela:
"The tyranic German governor - and furthermore we consider him to be a heretic, because he never went to mass, also didn't concede others to go there, and besides we registered significant signs of Lutherism with him..." (Las Casas, S. 87)
But we learn therefrom as well, the differences in Christian faith (either protestant or catholic) are of no importance regarding the beastly behaviour:"... that those German barbars robbed the king of more than three million Castilians in gold." (Las Casas, S. 90)
The people (the indios) are lost regarding their body:"And how can you replace the loss of those innumerable souls to have been thrown into the flames of hell due to the miserliness and the inhumanity of those beastlike tyrants, the Germans." (Las Casas, S. 91)
But they, the Germans, left some souls alive as well. And what for? To sell them as slaves:
"Of their hard-hearted and havoc causing procedures I will tell on the following at the end. Since the time when they intruded into this country they sent - up to today, that is during sixteen years - shiploads full of indians to Santa Maria, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and San Juan, having them sold as slaves. In total this adds up to one million souls." (Las Casas, S. 91)
The End