Page 275 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

tied behind their backs. Still others were tied together in groups of
tens or fifteens, indicating that the victirns had been shoved into the
rrrass graves and buried alive.

Arnong the known rnassacres in which the victirns were
buried alive or died sirnilarily painful deaths, was the case involving
three West Gerrnan teachers of the Hue Medical School and the wifei
of one of thern. The victirns were Dr and Mrs Hort Gunther Krainich,
Dr Alois Alterkoster and Dr Rairnund. Discher. They had corne to
Vietnarn to teach at the Hue University under a West Gerrnan tech_
nical aid prograrn. They were abducted on Jan 3l or on Tet Day during
the first hours of the enerny offensive on the city.
When they storrned the Hue University cornpound enerny
troops and agents did not arrest the Vietnarnese teachers apparently
because one of their top leaders, prof. Le Van Hao, had been one of

their colleagues only a few days earlier. The graves of the W.est
Gerrnan professors were not found until April. These cold-blooded
rnurders aroused the conscience and indignation of the entired civil_
ized world. Hardly anyone had ever believed that the Viet Cong were
barbarous enough to rnurder servants of charity and weUare.

These fanatical rnassacres of defenseless people were
bitterly condernned by public opinion and the press around the world.
The London Tirnes ran a banner headline protesting these rnass exe_
cutions, During the course of one of these execution reporter Steward
Harris rnet tragic death. In the French newspaper Minute, reporter
Yves Gautron wrote that no one could tolerate these savage of
".t"
C ornrnunist terrorisrn against the innocent people in Hue. In France
studenta held a rnass protest rally at the Ternes Square to condernn
these atr oc itie s.

Vietnarnese officials killed during the Hue tragedy
included the late Hue Deputy Mayor Tran Dinh phuong, the late public
Prosecutor of the Thua Thien field court Maj Buu Thanh, the late
Justice of the Hue Court of Appeals Nguyen Khoa Hoang and his
lawyer son. Deputy lr,4ayor phuong was rnurdered right in front of his
horne. He was ternporarily buried eight days later at the sarne place
where he was shot, Maj Thanh was abducted and never heard of again.
Justice Hoang was abducted frorn his horne and his son was also led
away while pleading for the release of his father.

Maj Tran Huu Bao, deputy province chief of Thua Thien,
was wounded leading a defensive action against an enerny assault on

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