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40 Historical Facts Accepted as Real For Many Years

Khalid Elhassan February 14, 2020 34 min

Albrecht Gessler - William Tell — William Tell. Learn Swiss-German

33. Slovik’s Scheme

Muddy and weary American infantrymen in WWII. Quora

Slovik seems to have figured that confessing to desertion would get him sent to jail. As a former jailbird who had done multiple stints behind bars, jail held no terrors for him. As he saw it, staying safe, sound, dry, and well-fed in a military prison was preferable to risking life and limb, and dealing with the cold and mud and other hardships of frontline combat.

Sure, desertion could be punished with death, but nobody had been executed for that offense. Let the other suckers get shot up or maimed, seemed to be Slovik’s logic. By inviting the military to punish him, and embracing that punishment, he would achieve his goal of avoiding hazardous duty, and sit out the war in safety. It was a foolproof way to game the system and manipulate it for his benefit. Or so he thought.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.