Allied Commanders of World War Two/Patton, Part Three/Final

"George S. Patton" Part 3

With the defeat of the German offensive known as "the Battle of the Bulge," Patton's army pressed into Germany and crossed the Rhine River. In mid April 1945, Patton was promoted to four-star general, although just a couple of weeks before, he had gotten into more trouble by sending a force of some 300 men behind German lines to liberate a POW camp where his son-in-law was a prisoner. The operation failed and almost the entire force was lost. The 3rd Army advanced through Bavaria and into (German held) Czechoslovakia as the war ended.

As the postwar military governor of the German state of Bavaria, Patton got into more trouble, as his dislike of the Soviets prompted him to express views and to take actions that were highly controversial. He kept former Nazis in office to help govern the region, compared Nazis to American political parties, referred to Russians in Nazi-like terms, like "Asiatic" and "Mongolian,"* and espoused using the German army in conjunction with the Western Allies against the Soviets. While tensions with the Soviets mounted, Patton's strident opinions did not sit well with many Americans or western Europeans who had had enough of war, and just wanted to recover from World War Two. Eisenhower relieved Patton of his command, although the general prepared to help write the history of the U.S. Army in the war.

In December 1945 General Patton was injured in what appeared to be a relatively minor auto accident (others involved were uninjured), but he was paralysed by a spinal injury. He died a couple of weeks later from a blood clot in his lung. He is buried with 3rd Army troops in Luxembourg.**

* The Soviet Union actually inherited the former multi-ethnic Russian Empire of the Tsar, and as such, a large area of the country lay in Asia. The term "Russian" had become standard for Soviet citizens by many people around the world, although many were not really Russian at all. Nazi propaganda had played up the "Asian" part of the Soviet population to scare Germans and western Europeans into fighting against the Soviets (remember, historically Asian tribes like the Mongols and Huns had pushed into many parts of Europe in prior centuries), although there is no question that Nazi racial and ethnic ideas had long preached this Asian connection. There is also no question that Russians had been influenced by Asians (even mode of dress) prior to Tsar Peter the Great, who forcibly changed Russians to more western European ways.

** For my article on the movie, "Patton," see: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/09/patton-just-great-movie.html

WORD HISTORY:
Hand-This word "may" go back to an Indo European base "khend/khent," which had the notion of "seizing, grasping," but it only developed its meaning of "body part" in Germanic, as forms of the word are not found outside of the Germanic languages, except in borrowings. Old Germanic had "khanduz," which meant "hand." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "hand/hond," depending upon dialect, which later just became "hand." Common in the other Germanic languages: German has "Hand" (all German nouns are capitalized), Low German Saxon has "Hann," Dutch, West Frisian, Swedish, and Norwegian all have "hand," although Norwegian also has the variation, " hånd" (depending upon dialect), Danish has "hånd," and Icelandic has "hönd."