Patton and War Crimes

[The Lurker Below]

Not true. The Marines - fueled by a government sponsored dehumanization campaign - put even the Rape of Nanking to shame in the way they conducted the war. Now we're constantly told how virtually no Japanese soldier surrendered. One of the most under-reported aspects of the war.

Furthermore the Japanese never actually committed any war crimes because they never signed on for the Geneva Convention rights anyhow, amirite?
/sarcasm

[PanzerJaeger]

Excuse me, PJ, but are you trying to say that there was no difference between Allies/Soviets and Nazis? If so, you really shouldn't bother...

Don't you think you should separate the Western Allies from the Soviets?

Are you attempting to take a **** on my family history.

I'm attempting to depict history accurately, which, surprisingly, doesn't always fall in line with The Sands of Iwo Jima.

And even if they did shoot prisoners that is NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING like physically raping thousands of women and killing thousands more civilians.

The irony is staggering. How can you take such offence and be so clueless at the same time?

Still, the villagers' tale of a dark, long-kept secret has refocused attention on what historians say is one of the most widely ignored crimes of the war, the widespread rape of Okinawan women by American servicemen.

Ah, but they didn't just rape civilians and shoot prisoners. They also ripped the gold fillings out of their heads - alive or dead. They tore them limb from limb for souvenirs. They traded Japanese ears amongst themselves for cigarettes and chocolates. They decapitated Japanese POWs with their bayonets, boiled their skulls and sent them home to their mothers and girlfriends. These actions were common and widely accepted by both grunts and officers. Do I need to make another thread?

Now, I’m sorry your American History classes have failed you in this respect, but please refrain from further righteous indignation until you figure out what really happened.

Furthermore the Japanese never actually committed any war crimes because they never signed on for the Geneva Convention rights anyhow, amirite?

You may want to consider returning to lurking.

[Brenus]

“Don't you think you should separate the Western Allies from the Soviets?” No.
Well-done PZ.
About US killings and all the others things you describe, we know the US (and others) soldiers were not exempt of cruelty. If you just watch the treatment by the US media of that time concerning the Japanese you’ve got a clue…
However, nothing match in the Allies side (including Soviet) the horrors started and launched by the Nazi and their Japanese allies…
You successfully try to twist history and I admire the job. You just illustrate what was my research when I was in University: How to modify a perception of an historical event in a manner that fits our view. You have your representation (allies = nazi, so nazi not sooo guilty if not guilty at all…).
I do enjoy this..

[Centurion1]

PJ im not saying that the US always did the correct thing. But compared to the Japanese they were far better and the same applies to the nazis as well.

i dont know how you can defend this

[Sarmatian]

Don't you think you should separate the Western Allies from the Soviets?

Possibly, but neither were nowhere near as bad as Nazis or the Japanese.

Unfortunately, cruelty is a part of war. There hasn't been a war without it and there hasn't been an army that hasn't committed some cruel acts. The degree varies but it was never institutionalized like it was within the Wehrmacht and the Japanese army. It has never happened in the entire history of the world. And, no, Aztecs or some African tribes are not a valid comparison.

Now, on the other hand, you haven't answered the question - Do you believe that there is no difference between Allies or Soviets and the Nazis or Japanese?

[PanzerJaeger]

You have your representation (allies = nazi, so nazi not sooo guilty if not guilty at all…).

Your words, not mine.

While I did find your thesis entertaining, it is not particularly correct. I started this thread because I was asked about the topic in another thread and I felt it deviated too much from what was being discussed there. I do not believe I have mentioned Nazis or Germans yet, except incidentally in the original post.

I understand that the subject of Allied war crimes makes many people uncomfortable. It doesn't fit into the post-war narrative we were all taught in school. However, if you or anyone else has a problem with what has been said, I suggest you take it up with the historical record, instead of trying to paint me as on some sort of one man Nazi vindication campaign.

I would much rather be talking tanks and battles and such, but if people are going to make declarative statements based on 6th grade truisms like "our boys would never rape civilians" that are patently false, then I will address them accordingly.

It is funny. There are countless books, documentaries, etc. documenting Nazi and Japanese crimes during the war. I believe there was even a thread about the Wehrmacht's crimes here in the monastery a few months back. No one’s denying them. However, when that same spotlight is turned on the Allies' conduct, hostility arises. I must have some sort of revisionist agenda to even bring it up!

PJ im not saying that the US always did the correct thing. But compared to the Japanese they were far better and the same applies to the nazis as well.

i dont know how you can defend this

And I'm not sure how you can still make that statement after reading the information I shared earlier. Let me find you some more information.

Possibly, but neither were nowhere near as bad as Nazis or the Japanese.

Can you expand on this a bit in regard to the Soviets? I'm trying to think of the worst things the Nazis did off the top of my head, and everything I can think of was either comparably duplicated by the Soviets or even worse.

Unfortunately, cruelty is a part of war. There hasn't been a war without it and there hasn't been an army that hasn't committed some cruel acts. The degree varies but it was never institutionalized like it was within the Wehrmacht and the Japanese army. It has never happened in the entire history of the world. And, no, Aztecs or some African tribes are not a valid comparison.

I completely disagree. It might work if you replaced "institutionalized" with "industrialized", but you certainly don't have to look back as far as the Aztecs to find widespread institutional cruelty and war crimes in human history.

Now, on the other hand, you haven't answered the question - Do you believe that there is no difference between Allies or Soviets and the Nazis or Japanese?

I appreciate the interest, but I don't think my personal beliefs have any bearing on a historical discussion.

[Brenus]

"I'm trying to think of the worst things the Nazis did off the top of my head" Treblinka.

[PanzerJaeger]

"I'm trying to think of the worst things the Nazis did off the top of my head" Treblinka. Kolyma.

[Brenus]

From your own source: “Hard work in the Soviet labor camp, harsh climate and meager food, poor health”.

Not built to kill all passengers of a train in 2 hours, time needed for the train to refuel and turn…

Still have to find a EXTERMINATION camp in Soviet Union PZ. But you had the one I was expected, as it is the most famous…

Treblinka: June,22, 1942 – November 1943: about 850,000 people were killed here - Jews from occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Greece, Yugoslavia and USSR, as well as from Germany and Austria. Polish and German Gypsies were also sent to Treblinka.

Sobibor: in 18 months at least 250,000 men, women, and children were murdered. Only 48 Sobibor prisoners survived the war, thanks to an escape.

[Sarmatian]

Can you expand on this a bit in regard to the Soviets? I'm trying to think of the worst things the Nazis did off the top of my head, and everything I can think of was either comparably duplicated by the Soviets or even worse.

Let's put it this way, shall we - Soviets and Allies together killed less German civilians than Germany killed Russian civilians. You don't even have to add Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece... If we add Chinese civilians killed by the Japanese the difference is like comparing a glass of water to an ocean.

Now, if you have data that makes those numbers comparable, feel free to share them and then we can have a meaningful discussion. Citing incidents where Soviets or Allies or various resistance movements committed war crimes (and I agree it happened and that it shouldn't be covered up) doesn't change the big picture in the slightest.

[Pannonian]

Let's put it this way, shall we - Soviets and Allies together killed less German civilians than Germany killed Russian civilians. You don't even have to add Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece... If we add Chinese civilians killed by the Japanese the difference is like comparing a glass of water to an ocean.

Now, if you have data that makes those numbers comparable, feel free to share them and then we can have a meaningful discussion. Citing incidents where Soviets or Allies or various resistance movements committed war crimes (and I agree it happened and that it shouldn't be covered up) doesn't change the big picture in the slightest.

Also, are there any Allied equivalents of Mengele and Unit 731?

[PanzerJaeger]

From your own source: “Hard work in the Soviet labor camp, harsh climate and meager food, poor health”.

Actually, my link said:

In 1937, at the height of the Purges, Stalin ordered an intensification of the hardships prisoners were forced to endure.[4] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn quotes camp commander Naftaly Frenkel as establishing the new law of the Archipelago: "We have to squeeze everything out of a prisoner in the first three months — after that we don't need him anymore." [5] The system of hard labor and minimal or no food reduced most prisoners to helpless "goners" (dokhodyaga, in Russian).

Robert Conquest, Yevgenia Ginzburg, Anne Applebaum, Adam Hochschild and others (see bibliography) describe the Kolyma camps in some detail. The suffering of the prisoners was exacerbated by the presence of ordinary criminals, who terrorized the "political" prisoners. Death in the Kolyma camps came in many forms, including: overwork, starvation, malnutrition, mining accidents, exposure, murder at the hands of criminals, and beatings at the hands of guards. A director of the Sevvostlag complex of camps, colonel Sergey Garanin is said to have personally shot whole brigades of prisoners for not fulfilling their daily quotas in the late 1930s.[6] Escape was difficult, owing to the climate and physical isolation of the region, but some still attempted it. Escapees, if caught, were often torn to shreds by camp guard dogs. The use of torture as punishment was also common. Soviet dissident historian Roy Medvedev has compared the conditions in the Kolyma camps to Auschwitz.

Further, it goes on to say:

In Bitter Days of Kolyma, Ayyub Baghirov, an Azerbaijani accountant who was finally rehabilitated, provides details of his arrest, torture and sentencing to eight (finally to become 18) years imprisonment in a labour camp for refusing to incriminate a fellow official for financial irregularities. Describing the train journey to Siberia, he writes: "The terrible heat, the lack of fresh air, the unbearable overcrowded conditions all exhausted us. We were all half starved. Some of the elderly prisoners, who had become so weak and emaciated, died along the way. Their corpses were left abandoned alongside the railroad tracks."

Another vivid account of the conditions in Kolyma is that of Brother Gene Thompson of Kiev's Faith Mission. He recounts how he met Vyacheslav Palman, a prisoner who survived because he knew how to grow cabbages. Palman spoke of how guards read out the names of those to be shot every evening. On one occasion a group of 169 men were shot and thrown into a pit. Their fully clothed bodies were found after the ice melted in 1998.

Anyway, you seem to be arguing that the method of killing is the distinction - that it is somehow worse to kill people with poison gas than to slowly work and starve them to death. I just don't see much distinction, other than being starved to death entails a far longer period of suffering.

WikiChart

I was very surprised to see that you posted that chart. I would expect such sloppyness from others, but from our previous discussions, I know that you know your history better than that. Now I'm questioning my vote.

Anyway, I would think anyone who has spent any time studying the war would realize that a chart entitled "WW2 Deaths" broken down into Axis and Allied military and civilian deaths would represent data very different than a chart that depicted Axis and Allied deaths directly caused by the enemy.

And sure enough, a simple perusal of the footnotes to that chart shows that counted in "Allied Civilian Deaths" include millions who died in ways that are somewhat difficult to blame on the Axis. Here are some of my favorites:

-famine in unoccupied zones
-disease in unoccupied zones
-Nationalist Chinese repression
-Chinese Communist repression
-other Chinese repression from various warlords
-French killed during Allied air raids
-Koreans who died in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
-Micronesian war related civilian deaths caused by American bombing and shellfire; and malnutrition caused by the U.S. blockade of the islands
-Polish citizens who perished due to Soviet repression
-Stalin's repression of his own people, including deaths in the Gulag system

Now, I'll give you a gold star if you can somehow pin those who died in Stalin's Gulags on Germany.

Anyway, the reality is that the disproportionality represented in that chart - apart from Allied repression and bombing of Allied civilians - is mainly due to the Soviet and Chinese inability to feed their own people and contain disease. If you were to take those two out, and compare civilian losses between 1st world nations like Britain, France and the US - I believe the proportions would be more evenly matched. An argument could be made that by simply starting the war the Axis countries were responsible for those deaths, but such an argument would be severely undercut by the fact that those nations couldn't even feed and treat their own people before the war due to collectivist schemes in Russia and poor infrastructure due to Western repression and internal strife in China. Regardless, the facts behind that chart represent a little bit different picture than the one you were (I assume) trying to paint.

As to your point - that the Axis killed more civilians than the Allies during the war - I've never argued otherwise. Now if you want to look at the whole scope of Russian and Chinese communism, that's a different story - but that is not what is being discussed here.

Also, are there any Allied equivalents of Mengele and Unit 731?

The London Cage comes to mind. Of course, there was no medical pretense to what went on there - just pure unadulterated torture.

[Pannonian]

The London Cage comes to mind. Of course, there was no medical pretense to what went on there - just pure unadulterated torture.

You're seriously comparing that to what Mengele and Unit 731 did?

[Sarmatian]

I was very surprised to see that you posted that chart. I would expect such sloppyness from others, but from our previous discussions, I know that you know your history better than that. Now I'm questioning my vote.

Anyway, I would think anyone who has spent any time studying the war would realize that a chart entitled "WW2 Deaths" broken down into Axis and Allied military and civilian deaths would represent data very different than a chart that depicted Axis and Allied deaths directly caused by the enemy.

And sure enough, a simple perusal of the footnotes to that chart shows that counted in "Allied Civilian Deaths" include millions who died in ways that are somewhat difficult to blame on the Axis. Here are some of my favorites:

-famine in unoccupied zones
-disease in unoccupied zones
-Nationalist Chinese repression
-Chinese Communist repression
-other Chinese repression from various warlords
-French killed during Allied air raids
-Koreans who died in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
-Micronesian war related civilian deaths caused by American bombing and shellfire; and malnutrition caused by the U.S. blockade of the islands
-Polish citizens who perished due to Soviet repression
-Stalin's repression of his own people, including deaths in the Gulag system

Now, I'll give you a gold star if you can somehow pin those who died in Stalin's Gulags on Germany.

Anyway, the reality is that the disproportionality represented in that chart - apart from Allied repression and bombing of Allied civilians - is mainly due to the Soviet and Chinese inability to feed their own people and contain disease. If you were to take those two out, and compare civilian losses between 1st world nations like Britain, France and the US - I believe the proportions would be more evenly matched. An argument could be made that by simply starting the war the Axis countries were responsible for those deaths, but such an argument would be severely undercut by the fact that those nations couldn't even feed and treat their own people before the war due to collectivist schemes in Russia and poor infrastructure due to Western repression and internal strife in China. Regardless, the facts behind that chart represent a little bit different picture than the one you were (I assume) trying to paint.

As to your point - that the Axis killed more civilians than the Allies during the war - I've never argued otherwise. Now if you want to look at the whole scope of Russian and Chinese communism, that's a different story - but that is not what is being discussed here.

C'mon, PJ, you can do better than that. Do you have the data how many people in Soviet Union died outside occupied areas? Or in China? Do you really think it would change the overall ratio THAT MUCH? Instead of 58%, how much would it be? 52%? 42%? 30%?

The only way you can seriously question established figures is with different figures. Mentioning Allied crimes one by one won't get you anywhere. Take away ALL Soviet and Chinese civilian casualties and still Axis civilian casualties were much smaller than Allied.

You can't because you don't know and you're trying to push your agenda by spamming/mentioning various incidents. So, for the third time, bring different numbers to the discussion. I'm all for revisionism but only when it is backed up with proper data.

[Pannonian]

The only way you can seriously question established figures is with different figures. Mentioning Allied crimes one by one won't get you anywhere. Take away ALL Soviet and Chinese civilian casualties and still Axis civilian casualties were much smaller than Allied.

You can't because you don't know and you're trying to push your agenda by spamming/mentioning various incidents. So, for the third time, bring different numbers to the discussion. I'm all for revisionism but only when it is backed up with proper data.

In PJ-world, an Allied camp where German prisoners were beaten and shouted at is equivalent to Axis institutions where prisoners were dissected alive while fully conscious.

[The Wizard]

Quite, actually. Many a soldier fought for their state simply out of loyalty. The most famous example would be Mr. Lee, who Centurion has already pointed out. Lincoln himself was rather racist, although quite a moderate given his contemparies, and his goal was to strengthen the North, not to free slaves. Not to say that race wasn't an issue, but most Northerners fought because the South just seceded from the USA. The South obviously found the loss in plantation revenue alarming, but the poor white workers with no land didn't have much to do with that.

A passage with the quotes from letters written by a Union soldier may serve to illustrate the contrary...

Like hundreds of thousands of other Americans, Marcus M. Spiegel volunteered in 1861 to fight in the Civil War. Born into a Jewish family in Germany in 1829, Spiegel took part in the failed German revolution of 1848. In the following year he emigrated to Ohio, where he married the daughter of a local farmer. When the Civil War broke out, the nation's 150,000 Jews represented less than 1 percent of the total population. But Spiegel shared wholeheartedly in American patriotism. He went to war, he wrote to his brother-in-law, to defend "the flag that was ever ready to protect you and me and every one who has sought its protection from oppression."

Spiegel rose to the rank of colonel in the 120th Ohio Infantry and saw action in Virginia, Mississippi and Louisiana. He corresponded frequently with his wife, Caroline. "I have seen and learned much," he wrote in 1863. "I have seen men dying of disease and mangled by the weapons of the death; I have witnessed hostile armies arrayed against each other, the charge of infantry, [and] cavalry hunting men down like beasts." But he never wavered in his commitment to the "glorious cause" of preserving the Union and its heritage of freedom.

What one Pennsylvania recruit called "the magic word Freedom" shaped how many Union soldiers understood the conflict. The war's purpose, wrote Samuel McIlvane, a sergeant from Indiana, was to preserve the American nation as "the beacon light of liberty and freedom to the human race." But as the war progressed, prewar understandings of liberty gave way to something new. Millions of northerners who had not been abolitionists became convinced that preserving the Union as an embodiment of liberty required the destruction of slavery.

Marcus Spiegel's changing views mirrored the transformation of a struggle to save the Union into a war to end slavery. Spiegel was an ardent Democrat. He shared the era's racist attitudes and thought Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation a serious mistake. Yet as the Union army penetrated the heart of the Deep South, Spiegel became increasingly opposed to slavery. "Since I am here," he wrote to his wife from Louisiana in January 1864, "I have learned and seen . . . the horrors of slavery. You know it takes me long to say anything that sounds antidemocratic [opposed to Democratic Party policies], but . . . never hereafter will I either speak or vote in favor of slavery."

Marcus Spiegel was killed in a minor engagement in Louisiana in May 1864, one of 620,000 Americans to perish in the Civil War.

(Taken from Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Volume I (New York 2009), p. 480-482)

Not true. The Marines - fueled by a government sponsored dehumanization campaign - put even the Rape of Nanking to shame in the way they conducted the war. Now we're constantly told how virtually no Japanese soldier surrendered. One of the most under-reported aspects of the war.

...

No comment. No ******* comment. This is too outrageously ridiculous a claim to even take seriously. Your unrelenting and utterly misguided crusade to make the Allies as black as the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese continues, to the hilarity of all. Try telling that to any of the victims of Nanjing. Or any professional historian of any merit whatsoever. Take a shot. See what happens, champ.

I'm starting to feel like a broken record. The information is all out there.

Oh, but you are, chum, you are.

[PanzerJaeger]

C'mon, PJ, you can do better than that. Do you have the data how many people in Soviet Union died outside occupied areas? Or in China? Do you really think it would change the overall ratio THAT MUCH? Instead of 58%, how much would it be? 52%? 42%? 30%?

Are you serious? You throw up a chart that includes those who died in the Gulags and under Nationalist Chinese repression and try and pass it off as some sort of representation of the proportionality of those killed by the Axis countries and then question me about numbers?

In any event, those that died of disease and famine in unoccupied zones alone ranges into the tens of millions. So yes, removing those from the equation, not to mention the litany of other non-axis deaths in your chart that I touched on, would have a dramatic effect on the outcome.

You can't because you don't know and you're trying to push your agenda by spamming/mentioning various incidents. So, for the third time, bring different numbers to the discussion. I'm all for revisionism but only when it is backed up with proper data.

You and Brenus seem to know more about my intentions than I do. Can you please explain what my agenda is, and how I've been "spamming" it? Furthermore, can you please cite any inaccurate information I've provided in this or any other thread?

Seems to me, hearing about Allied war crimes makes some people uncomfortable. Don't shoot the messenger. As I said before, I started this thread because people asked me about the topic. I presented the information in as objective a way as possible. I only jumped back into the thread when the statement "all in all America's fighting men performed far more humanely than the japanese" was made. It was inaccurate and needed to be corrected.

You got it right the first time when you said:

I don't think that PJ's point was that allies were just as bad as the nazis, On the other hand, we shouldn't just ignore war crimes that weren't committed by the nazis.

In PJ-world, an Allied camp where German prisoners were beaten and shouted at is equivalent to Axis institutions where prisoners were dissected alive while fully conscious.

Surely you meant to say "beaten until they begged to be killed", among other various delights. Of course, when the British torture people, it's just adorable.

No comment. No ******* comment. This is too outrageously ridiculous a claim to even take seriously. Your unrelenting and utterly misguided crusade to make the Allies as black as the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese continues, to the hilarity of all. Try telling that to any of the victims of Nanjing. Or any professional historian of any merit whatsoever. Take a shot. See what happens, champ.

From one of my earlier posts:

Ah, but they [American military personnel] didn't just rape civilians and shoot prisoners. They also ripped the gold fillings out of their heads - alive or dead. They tore them limb from limb for souvenirs. They traded Japanese ears amongst themselves for cigarettes and chocolates. They decapitated Japanese POWs with their bayonets, boiled their skulls and sent them home to their mothers and girlfriends. These actions were common and widely accepted by both grunts and officers.

You're welcome to disprove this. I'll be waiting.

[The Wizard]

Are you serious? You throw up a chart that includes those who died in the Gulags and under Nationalist Chinese repression and try and pass it off as some sort of representation of the proportionality of those killed by the Axis countries and then question me about numbers?

Are you serious? You throw up the extremely weak and dubitable argument that, magically, famine brought on by war declared by Nazi Germany and Japan (respectively) is to be blamed on the Soviet Union and the Chinese (which never would have experienced those famines if they hadn't been invaded by these two murderous regimes) and you're arguing numbers?

Get real, PJ. Your entire argument rests on thin air, namely the complete flaming that is asserting that famine brought on by war is to be blamed on the attacked and not the attacker. Best argument ever: the Nazis occupying the breadbasket of the Soviet Union means it's Stalin's fault Russians starved! I guess the same is true for the Javanese famine, which caused the deaths of over 4,000,000 people during the Japanese occupation! Wow, I could have never imagined. When not even remotely in control of a place, you can still be blamed for what happens there! This is an amazing innovation in logic!

Switching cause and effect is the only thing enabling you to posit the preposterous mound of steaming that is your argument.

As for claiming the shooting of surrendered Japanese soldiers puts the Rape of Nanjing "to shame"... holy crap. Again, no comment. Just no comment. I don't even have to deal with this, it's that ridiculous.

[Sarmatian]

Are you serious? You throw up a chart that includes those who died in the Gulags and under Nationalist Chinese repression and try and pass it off as some sort of representation of the proportionality of those killed by the Axis countries and then question me about numbers?

Then give me some different numbers to talk about. You say those are incorrect. Let's hear the correct ones and we'll go from there.

In any event, those that died of disease and famine in unoccupied zones alone ranges into the tens of millions. So yes, removing those from the equation, not to mention the litany of other non-axis deaths in your chart that I touched on, would have a dramatic effect on the outcome.

Like Wizard said, you're reversing cause and effect. Occupation of Ukraine from which most of the USSR food came was a major factor in the famines. That makes Nazis indirectly responsible for their deaths, at least most of them. Here's a treat for you - let's forget about them. Let's forget about all Chinese and Russian civilian casualties. If all the rest Allied civilian casualties are smaller than German and Japanese ones, I'll concede that Allies were just as bad as the Axis.

You and Brenus seem to know more about my intentions than I do. Can you please explain what my agenda is, and how I've been "spamming" it? Furthermore, can you please cite any inaccurate information I've provided in this or any other thread?

Well, let's see. You provided that some German POWs were killed under Patton. Ok, I believe that's correct. You said what American marines did to the Japanese puts what happened in Nanjing to shame - that I have serious trouble believing, especially unless it backed up by hard facts, meaning time, place and numbers. So far you're several hundreds thousands people killed and tens of thousands of women raped short.

Seems to me, hearing about Allied war crimes makes some people uncomfortable. Don't shoot the messenger. As I said before, I started this thread because people asked me about the topic. I presented the information in as objective a way as possible. I only jumped back into the thread when the statement "all in all America's fighting men performed far more humanely than the japanese" was made. It was inaccurate and needed to be corrected.

So, you're saying American soldiers didn't perform more humanely than the Japanese? They behaved the same? There is no difference between them? Is that what you're saying or we have a bad connection?

You got it right the first time when you said:

Yeah, based on our earlier discussions, I didn't expect this from you. From a person conducting a scholarly discussion you've come real close to being a Nazi apologist.

[Centurion1]

Like hundreds of thousands of other Americans, Marcus M. Spiegel volunteered in 1861 to fight in the Civil War. Born into a Jewish family in Germany in 1829, Spiegel took part in the failed German revolution of 1848. In the following year he emigrated to Ohio, where he married the daughter of a local farmer. When the Civil War broke out, the nation's 150,000 Jews represented less than 1 percent of the total population. But Spiegel shared wholeheartedly in American patriotism. He went to war, he wrote to his brother-in-law, to defend "the flag that was ever ready to protect you and me and every one who has sought its protection from oppression."

Spiegel rose to the rank of colonel in the 120th Ohio Infantry and saw action in Virginia, Mississippi and Louisiana. He corresponded frequently with his wife, Caroline. "I have seen and learned much," he wrote in 1863. "I have seen men dying of disease and mangled by the weapons of the death; I have witnessed hostile armies arrayed against each other, the charge of infantry, [and] cavalry hunting men down like beasts." But he never wavered in his commitment to the "glorious cause" of preserving the Union and its heritage of freedom.

What one Pennsylvania recruit called "the magic word Freedom" shaped how many Union soldiers understood the conflict. The war's purpose, wrote Samuel McIlvane, a sergeant from Indiana, was to preserve the American nation as "the beacon light of liberty and freedom to the human race." But as the war progressed, prewar understandings of liberty gave way to something new. Millions of northerners who had not been abolitionists became convinced that preserving the Union as an embodiment of liberty required the destruction of slavery.

Marcus Spiegel's changing views mirrored the transformation of a struggle to save the Union into a war to end slavery. Spiegel was an ardent Democrat. He shared the era's racist attitudes and thought Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation a serious mistake. Yet as the Union army penetrated the heart of the Deep South, Spiegel became increasingly opposed to slavery. "Since I am here," he wrote to his wife from Louisiana in January 1864, "I have learned and seen . . . the horrors of slavery. You know it takes me long to say anything that sounds antidemocratic [opposed to Democratic Party policies], but . . . never hereafter will I either speak or vote in favor of slavery."

Marcus Spiegel was killed in a minor engagement in Louisiana in May 1864, one of 620,000 Americans to perish in the Civil War.

(Taken from Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Volume I (New York 2009), p. 480-482)

We are talking about the south not the north. The north was constantly drafting and conscripted soldiers, most southern men signed up right off the bat except for the rich. The men who fought the war for the south were poor Scots-Irish from the Appalachian mountains for the most part.

[PanzerJaeger]

Are you serious? You throw up the extremely weak and dubitable argument that, magically, famine brought on by war declared by Nazi Germany and Japan (respectively) is to be blamed on the Soviet Union and the Chinese (which never would have experienced those famines if they hadn't been invaded by these two murderous regimes) and you're arguing numbers?

Get real, PJ. Your entire argument rests on thin air, namely the complete flaming that is asserting that famine brought on by war is to be blamed on the attacked and not the attacker. Best argument ever: the Nazis occupying the breadbasket of the Soviet Union means it's Stalin's fault Russians starved! I guess the same is true for the Javanese famine, which caused the deaths of over 4,000,000 people during the Japanese occupation! Wow, I could have never imagined. When not even remotely in control of a place, you can still be blamed for what happens there! This is an amazing innovation in logic!

Switching cause and effect is the only thing enabling you to posit the preposterous mound of steaming that is your argument.

I'm not really sure what to make of that other than a strong suspicion that you didn't read my post thoroughly. It may be a daisy emoticon too far for me.

Let me ask you if you believe civilian deaths caused by the conflict between the various Chinese factions, which ran into the millions, should be attributable to the Axis?

As for claiming the shooting of surrendered Japanese soldiers puts the Rape of Nanjing "to shame"... holy crap. Again, no comment. Just no comment. I don't even have to deal with this, it's that ridiculous.

Those that were shot before they were torn limb from limb were the lucky ones. Again, I'm waiting for you to disprove what I said. You'll need a little more than hysterics to do that.

Then give me some different numbers to talk about. You say those are incorrect. Let's hear the correct ones and we'll go from there.

So you post a misleading graphic and I go to the trouble to go through the footnotes in an effort to help you understand why it is misleading and now you want me to do more of your homework?

Let's forget about all Chinese and Russian civilian casualties. If all the rest Allied civilian casualties are smaller than German and Japanese ones, I'll concede that Allies were just as bad as the Axis.

Again, you're arguing against positions I have not taken. You keep trying to broaden the argument to enhance your position. I did not take a position as to which side was "worse". I don't quantify morality through body counts. I took the position that the wiki graphic you posted was inaccurate in relation to the point you were making. Allow me to quote myself again.

As to your point - that the Axis killed more civilians than the Allies during the war - I've never argued otherwise.

Well, let's see. You provided that some German POWs were killed under Patton. Ok, I believe that's correct. You said what American marines did to the Japanese puts what happened in Nanjing to shame - that I have serious trouble believing, especially unless it backed up by hard facts, meaning time, place and numbers. So far you're several hundreds thousands people killed and tens of thousands of women raped short.

As I've said, the information is all out there. I would recommend War against subhumans: comparisons between the German War against the Soviet Union and the American war against Japan, 1941-1945, by James Weingartner, as a decent start.

So, you're saying American soldiers didn't perform more humanely than the Japanese? They behaved the same? There is no difference between them? Is that what you're saying or we have a bad connection?

That is what I am saying.

Yeah, based on our earlier discussions, I didn't expect this from you. From a person conducting a scholarly discussion you've come real close to being a Nazi apologist.

That is a strong accusation. I'm wondering how you justify it. Considering the only statements I've made that you question are about the US soldiers behavior towards the Japanese - wouldn't that make me a Japanese apologist?

[PanzerJaeger]

double post

[Centurion1]

double post mate.

[PanzerJaeger]

double post mate.

[drone]

Those that were shot before they were torn limb from limb were the lucky ones. Again, I'm waiting for you to disprove what I said. You'll need a little more than hysterics to do that.

This is textbook argumentum ad ignorantiam. You are making the assertion, therefore the burden of proof is on you. Hitler had sex with goats, prove to me that he didn't.

[PanzerJaeger]

This is textbook argumentum ad ignorantiam. You are making the assertion, therefore the burden of proof is on you. Hitler had sex with goats, prove to me that he didn't.

I'm sorry. I assumed the others were being coy. I thought it was common knowledge among people interested in the period.

Here's some wiki info for ya...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ja...g_World_War_II

U. S. historian James J. Weingartner attributes the very low number of Japanese in U.S. POW compounds to two key factors: a Japanese reluctance to surrender and a widespread American "conviction that the Japanese were 'animals' or 'subhuman' and unworthy of the normal treatment accorded to POWs."[11] The latter reasoning is supported by Fergusson, who says that "Allied troops often saw the Japanese in the same way that Germans regarded Russians [sic] — as Untermenschen."[12] According to Weingartner, many U.S. troops regarded fighting the Japanese as more like hunting inhuman animals than a war.[11]

The U.S. conviction that the Japanese were subhuman or animals, together with Japanese reluctance to attempt to surrender to allied forces, contributed to the fact that a mere 604 Japanese captives were alive in Allied POW camps by October 1944.

Weingartner also sees a connection between the mutilation of Japanese war dead and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[15] According to Weingartner both were partially the result of a dehumanization of the enemy. "[t]he widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human constituted an emotional context which provided another justification for decisions which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands."[16] On the second day after the Nagasaki bomb, Truman stated: "The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_...g_World_War_II

Allied soldiers in Pacific and Asian theatres sometimes killed Japanese soldiers who were attempting to surrender or after they had surrendered. A social historian of the Pacific War, John W. Dower, states that "by the final years of the war against Japan, a truly vicious cycle had developed in which the Japanese reluctance to surrender had meshed horrifically with Allied disinterest in taking prisoners."[29] Dower suggests that most Japanese personnel were told that they would be "killed or tortured" if they fell into Allied hands and, as a consequence, most of those faced with defeat on the battlefield fought to the death or committed suicide.[30] In addition, it was held to be shamefully disgraceful for a Japanese soldier to surrender, leading many to suicide or fight to the death regardless of beliefs concerning their possible treatment as POWs. In fact, the Japanese Field Service Code said that surrender was not permissible.[31] And while it was "not official policy" for Allied personnel to take no prisoners, "over wide reaches of the Asian battleground it was everyday practice."[32]

American soldiers in the Pacific often deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered. According to Richard Aldrich, who has published a study of the diaries kept by United States and Australian soldiers, they sometimes massacred prisoners of war.[39] Dower states that in "many instances ... Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or en route to prison compounds."[32] According to Aldrich it was common practice for U.S. troops not to take prisoners.[40] This analysis is supported by British historian Niall Ferguson,[41] who also says that, in 1943, "a secret [U. S.] intelligence report noted that only the promise of ice cream and three days leave would ... induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese."[42]

Ferguson states such practices played a role in the ratio of Japanese prisoners to dead being 1:100 in late 1944. That same year, efforts were taken by Allied high commanders to suppress "take no prisoners" attitudes,[42] among their own personnel (as these were affecting intelligence gathering) and to encourage Japanese soldiers to surrender. Ferguson adds that measures by Allied commanders to improve the ratio of Japanese prisoners to Japanese dead, resulted in it reaching 1:7, by mid-1945. Nevertheless, taking no prisoners was still standard practice among U. S. troops at the Battle of Okinawa, in April–June 1945.

Similar observations have been made regarding British Commonwealth personnel in South-East Asia. For instance, historians Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper state that, during the Assam campaign of 1944, "...British, Indian, and African troops methodically and ruthlessly killed all Japanese, [because they were] enraged by cases of atrocities against their own wounded... Lieutenant General William Slim wrote laconically: 'quarter was neither asked nor given.'"[48]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanes...n_World_War_II

It has been estimated that between 19,500 and 50,000 Japanese military personnel surrendered to Allied forces prior to the end of the Pacific War in August 1945.[1] The number of Japanese soldiers, sailors and airmen who surrendered was limited by the Japanese military indoctrinating its personnel to fight to the death and Allied personnel often being unwilling to take prisoners.[2]

Allied forces continued to kill Japanese personnel who were attempting to surrender throughout the war.[35] It is likely that more Japanese soldiers would have surrendered if they had not believed that they would be killed by the Allies while trying to do so.[36] Moreover, fear of being killed after surrendering was one of the main factors which influenced Japanese troops to fight to the death, and a wartime U.S. Office of Wartime Information report stated that it may have been more important than fear of disgrace and a desire to die for Japan.[37]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America...anese_war_dead

During World War II, some United States military personnel mutilated dead Japanese service personnel in the Pacific theater of operations. The mutilation of Japanese service personnel included the taking of body parts as “war souvenirs” and “war trophies”. Teeth were the most commonly taken objects, but skulls and other body parts were sometimes also collected. This behaviour was officially prohibited by the U.S. Military, but the prohibitions against it were not always enforced by officers in the field.

Only a minority of US troops collected Japanese body parts as trophies, and it is not possible to determine the percentage who did. However "their behaviour reflected attitudes which were very widely shared."[3][4] In addition to trophy skulls, teeth, ears and other such objects, taken body parts were occasionally modified, for example by writing on them or fashioning them into utilities or other artifacts.[5] "U.S. Marines on their way to Guadalcanal relished the prospect of making necklaces of Japanese gold teeth and "pickling" Japanese ears as keepsakes."[6] In an air base in New Guinea hunting the last remaining Japanese was a “sort of hobby”. The leg-bones of these Japanese were sometimes carved into letter openers and pen-holders,[5] but this was rare.[3]

Eugene Sledge, private, Company K, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division, also relates a few instances of fellow Marines extracting gold teeth from the Japanese dead. In one case, Sledge witnessed an extraction while the Japanese soldier was still alive. A Marine Sledge did not know drifted in after an engagement to take some "spoils." As the Marine drove his knife into the still live soldier, he was promptly shouted down by Sledge and others in Company K, and another Marine ran over and shot the wounded Japanese soldier. The Marine took his prize and drifted away, cursing the others for their humanity. (With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa. p 120 )

In 1944 the American poet Winfield Townley Scott was working as a reporter in Rhode Island when a sailor displayed his skull trophy in the newspaper office. This led to the poem The U.S. sailor with the Japanese skull, which described one method for preparation of skulls (the head is skinned, towed in a net behind a ship to clean and polish it, and in the end scrubbed with caustic soda).[7]

In October 1943, the U.S. High Command expressed alarm over recent newspaper articles, for example one where a soldier made a string of beads using Japanese teeth, and another about a soldier with pictures showing the steps in preparing a skull, involving cooking and scraping of the Japanese heads.[7]

Charles Lindbergh refers in his diary to many instances of Japanese with an ear or nose cut off.[7] In the case of the skulls however, most were not collected from freshly killed Japanese; most came from already partially or fully skeletonised Japanese bodies

Most U.S. servicemen in the Pacific did not mutilate Japanese corpses. The majority had some knowledge that these practices were occurring, however, and "accepted them as inevitable under the circumstances".[8] The incidence of soldiers collecting Japanese body parts occurred on "a scale large enough to concern the Allied military authorities throughout the conflict and was widely reported and commented on in the American and Japanese wartime press", however.[9] The degree of acceptance of the practice varied between units. Taking of teeth was generally accepted by enlisted men and also by officers, while acceptance for taking other body parts varied greatly.[3]

There is some disagreement between historians over what the more common forms of 'trophy hunting' undertaken by U.S. personnel were. John W. Dower states that ears were the most common form of trophy which was taken, and skulls and bones were less commonly collected. In particular he states that "skulls were not popular trophies" as they were difficult to carry and the process for removing the flesh was offensive.[10] This view is supported by Simon Harrison.[3] In contrast, Niall Ferguson states that "boiling the flesh off enemy [Japanese] skulls to make souvenirs was a not uncommon practice. Ears, bones and teeth were also collected".[11]

The collection of Japanese body parts began quite early in the campaign, prompting a September 1942 order for disciplinary action against such souvenir taking.[3] Harrison concludes that since this was the first real opportunity to take such items (the battle of Guadalcanal), "Clearly, the collection of body parts on a scale large enough to concern the military authorities had started as soon as the first living or dead Japanese bodies were encountered."[3] Eric Bergerud explains the attitudes which led to this behavior by noting that the Marines who fought on Guadalcanal were aware of Japanese atrocities against the defenders of Wake Island, which included the beheading of several Marines, and the Bataan Death March prior to the start of the campaign.[12] When Charles Lindbergh passed through customs at Hawaii in 1944, one of the customs declarations he was asked to make was whether or not he was carrying any bones. He was told after expressing some shock at the question that it had become a routine point.[13] This was because of the large number of souvenir bones discovered in customs, also including “green” (uncured) skulls.[14]

On February 1, 1943, Life magazine published a famous photograph by Ralph Morse which showed the charred, open-mouthed, decapitated head of a Japanese soldier killed by U.S Marines during the Guadalcanal campaign, and propped up below the gun turret of a tank by Marines. The caption read as follows: "A Japanese soldier's skull is propped up on a burned-out Jap tank by U.S. troops." Life received letters of protest from mothers who had sons in the war and others "in disbelief that American soldiers were capable of such brutality toward the enemy." The editors of Life explained that "war is unpleasant, cruel, and inhuman. And it is more dangerous to forget this than to be shocked by reminders."

In 1984 Japanese soldiers' remains were repatriated from the Mariana Islands. Roughly 60 percent were missing their skulls.[14]

And on and on and on...

[drone]

Much better.

[Louis VI the Fat]

According to James D. Morrow, "Death rates of POWs held is one measure of adherence to the standards of the treaties because substandard treatment leads to death of prisoners." The "democratic states generally provide good treatment of POWs".[64]

Death rates of POWs held by Axis powers

• Chinese POWs held by Japan: > 99%[citation needed] (only 56 survivors at the end of the war)[65]
• U.S. and British Commonwealth POWs held by Germany: ~4% [64]
• Soviet POWs held by Germany: 57.5% [66]
• Western Allied POWs held by Japan: 27% [67]

Death rates of POWs held by the Allies

• German POWs in East European (not including the Soviet Union) hands 32.9%[66]
• German soldiers held by Soviet Union: 15-33% (14.7% in The Dictators by Richard Overy, 35.8% in Ferguson[66])
• Japanese POWs held by Soviet Union: 10%
• German POWs in British hands 0.03%[66]
• German POWs in American hands 0.15%[66]
• German POWs in French hands 2.58%[66]
• Japanese POWs held by U.S.: relatively low, mainly suicides according to James D. Morrow[68] or according to Ulrich Straus high as many prisoners were shot by front line troops.[44]
• Japanese POWs in Chinese hands. 24%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_...II#The_Pacific

The pattern seems clear.

In every instance, the survival rate for Axis POW's in Allied hands is much, much higher than the reverse. Whether it be China - Japan, Germany - SU, or US/UK/France - Germany.

[ajaxfetish]

I've got mixed feelings here. PJ is an interesting member. Sometimes I worry about his motivations or prejudices, but he usually posts factual information and makes reasonable arguments. In spite of some asides, I have not got the impression in this thread that he is trying to argue that allied war crimes are as bad as axis ones, or that war crimes on the allied side make the allies as bad as the axis. He may think this himself (I'm not rightly sure), but regardless, he's made some assertions in this thread that are worth critical consideration, and should not be dismissed based on ideas of his possible intentions. We do not have to grant Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan any absolution in recognizing the existence of allied atrocities. To refuse to consider allied war crimes would be intellectually dishonest.

Ajax

[PanzerJaeger]

The pattern seems clear.

In every instance, the survival rate for Axis POW's in Allied hands is much, much higher than the reverse. Whether it be China - Japan, Germany - SU, or US/UK/France - Germany.

Louis, your own quote seems to betray the point you are trying to make.

Japanese POWs held by U.S.: relatively low, mainly suicides according to James D. Morrow[68] or according to Ulrich Straus high as many prisoners were shot by front line troops.[44]

Allow me to re-quote.

American soldiers in the Pacific often deliberately killed Japanese soldiers who had surrendered. According to Richard Aldrich, who has published a study of the diaries kept by United States and Australian soldiers, they sometimes massacred prisoners of war.[39] Dower states that in "many instances ... Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or en route to prison compounds."[32] According to Aldrich it was common practice for U.S. troops not to take prisoners.[40] This analysis is supported by British historian Niall Ferguson,[41] who also says that, in 1943, "a secret [U. S.] intelligence report noted that only the promise of ice cream and three days leave would ... induce American troops not to kill surrendering Japanese."[42]

Why is it so difficult to accept that both sides practiced dehumanization and their conduct in the war reflected that? For the Germans, it was the Eastern Peoples, for the Western Allies, it was the Japanese. For the Japanese, it was everyone. When the Germans and the Western Allies fought, it was generally far more civil because they saw each other as human. Interestingly, the Nazi dehumanization was a top-down campaign to induce cruel attitudes and hatred in their soldiers, while the Allied racism came directly from the people and was - at least on paper - frowned upon by at least some of the military and civilian higher-ups, like when Roosevelt sent back an envelope opener given to him by a congressman that was made from a Japanese shin bone.