“Why The US Army Ex*cuted It’s Own Soldier “

On the 31st of January, 1945, as the Second World War entered its last few months, an American soldier was led out to his execution. He was secured to a wooden stake and was tied tightly to it, and there was no way of escaping. The American soldier was Private Eddie Slovik, and his crime was not helping the Germans or spying, but he had been sentenced to death for desertion and for refusing to return to combat and fight the enemy.

What made his execution extraordinary was that thousands of American servicemen deserted during World War II, yet Eddie Slovik became the only American soldier executed for desertion by his own army during World War II. But why did the American armed forces decide that he should in fact be put to death, and why specifically was Eddie Slovik executed?

Eddie Donald Slovik was born in Detroit, Michigan on the 18th of February, 1920. His early life was relatively troubled, and he had a number of encounters with the law and police. He was convicted a number of times, in particular for theft. He was locked up in prison also, including once for crashing a car whilst he was drunk. But after he was paroled in April 1942, he took a plumbing job and got married.

To begin with, Slovik’s criminal record actually classified him as morally unfit for duty in the U.S. Army. However, he was later reclassified as being fit to fight and to join the army, and was drafted in January 1944. He was then sent to France to serve as a replacement infantry soldier. He was nowhere near an experienced soldier, though. Slovik had received basic training and had never actually fought in battle.

In August 1944, he arrived in France, where American forces were advancing against the Germans. Slovik was assigned to Company G of the 109th Infantry Regiment, which was part of the 28th Infantry Division. Almost immediately, he became separated from his unit during the confusion of moving towards the front. He and another soldier spent several weeks with a Canadian military police unit before returning to American lines. Neither man was initially punished for this absence.

However, Slovik himself had already decided he could not face frontline combat. On the 8th of October, 1944, he informed his commanding officers he was unwilling to serve as an infantryman. He reportedly asked whether he would face punishment if he just ran away. When he was told that desertion was a very serious military offense, he still refused to return to his unit.

Slovik then handed over a written statement acknowledging that he had deliberately abandoned his duties and intended to do so if sent back to combat. That was really important. Unlike soldiers who disappeared during the confusion of combat and battle and later claimed to become lost, Eddie Slovik openly admitted that he intended to avoid combat altogether.

His superiors gave him plenty of opportunities to reconsider, and he was warned about the consequences. He was also given the chance to return to duty and avoid prosecution, but still Eddie Slovik refused. He apparently believed that the worst punishment he would receive would be imprisonment. For a man who was terrified of being killed on the battlefield, spending the remainder of the war in a military prison might have actually been the best course of action for him. What he did not really think, though, was that the American army would legally sentence him to death.

Well, by autumn 1944, American troops were fighting increasingly difficult battles against dug-in defending German troops. The rapid Allied advance across France had slowed, and American infantry divisions were suffering very heavy losses. The fighting in the Hürtgen Forest was particularly brutal, with American soldiers facing constant artillery bombardments, intense machine gun fire, mines, freezing weather, and a very determined German enemy.

Commanders were also very concerned about maintaining the strength and morale of their infantry formations. Every soldier who abandoned his position potentially increased the burden on those who remained. From the perspective of senior officers, desertion threatened military discipline at precisely the moment when their troops were being asked to endure extremely dangerous conditions. Slovik’s refusal, therefore, became more than a case of a soldier with a number of disciplinary issues; it was seen as a challenge to the army’s ability to compel soldiers to fight against the Nazis.

After all of this, Eddie Slovik appeared before a military court-martial in November 1944. Nine American officers heard his case and unanimously found him guilty of desertion with the intention of avoiding hazardous duty. The court sentenced him to death by firing squad.

Now, although other Americans had been sentenced to death for desertion, their sentences were generally commuted to imprisonment. Slovik’s case, though, was different because he had repeatedly declared that he would desert again rather than fight. Army legal authorities argued that his conduct represented a direct challenge to military discipline. One official review claimed that the death penalty was justified and was needed to maintain discipline inside the army.

There was one man who could save Eddie Slovik, though: Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander. But he actually confirmed the death sentence on the 23rd of December, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, and weeks later he ordered the execution to proceed.

The timing of this was very significant. German forces had launched a massive counteroffensive in the Ardennes Forest, which resulted in the Battle of the Bulge, and American troops were suffering tens of thousands of casualties. Senior commanders feared that allowing soldiers to refuse combat without severe consequence might encourage even more desertion cases at a time in which they really didn’t need any. Slovik’s plea for clemency to be spared was also rejected, and that decision meant that he would be executed despite the fact he’d not killed anyone, betrayed his country, or assisted the enemy. He just refused to fight.

He went to his death believing,

“They’re not shooting me for deserting the American army. Thousands of guys had done that. They just need to make an example out of somebody, and I’m it, because I’m an ex-con. I used to steal things as a kid, and that’s what they’re shooting me for. They’re shooting me for the bread and chewing gum I stole when I was 12 years old.”

On the morning of the 31st of January, 1945, Eddie Slovik was taken to the courtyard of a building near Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in eastern France. He was just 24 years old. His uniform had been stripped of all his military insignia, and he was tied to a wooden post.

A firing squad of 12 American soldiers was assembled. Eleven rifles were loaded with live ammunition and one had a blank round, a procedure intended to introduce some uncertainty as to who fired a fatal shot. Shortly after 10:00 a.m., the soldiers fired. Slovik was hit by multiple bullets, and he apparently did not die immediately, but as the firing squad prepared to fire again, he succumbed to his wounds.

He was then buried in France, but his remains would later be dug up and he was repatriated back to America.

So why was Eddie Slovik the only American deserter executed during World War II? Well, this is actually quite controversial. Approximately 21,000 American soldiers deserted during World War II, and 49 of them were sentenced to death. But Slovik was the only one whose death sentence was actually carried out.

His case was particularly damaging because he openly admitted his intention to desert, refused several opportunities to return to duty, and expressed a willingness to repeat the offense. But it has been questioned whether his execution was necessary or fair. His trial, for one, was very short, and he did not have a lawyer defending him. The truth is that Eddie Slovik should probably never have been assigned to frontline infantry duties.

Despite commanders intending to use Slovik as a way to deter other soldiers from committing desertion, the army didn’t actually publicize what had happened and what they had done: execute one of their own men.

So ultimately, the Americans executed Eddie Slovik, one of their own, because their senior commanders believed that allowing him to refuse combat and accept imprisonment would undermine military discipline during a very critical stage of the war. His willingness to admit desertion, his refusal to reconsider, and the timing of his case made Slovik a particularly notorious example. But the decision to execute him is still controversial because thousands of other American deserters survived the war without facing any significant danger.

Slovik believed that he would spend the rest of the war safely tucked up in prison, but he became the only American soldier executed for desertion during World War II.

Possibly, though, the saddest part in all of this is that just over three months after the firing squad shot their bullets at one of their own, the war in Europe was over.