Hiroshima mon amour.

[InsaneApache]

I was reading an article in the Gruniad (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/06/secondworldwar.warcrimes) about whether it was right for the USA to drop 'the bomb' on Japan in 1945. I think it was the right thing to do, however horrible. I sometime despair of this fashion for revisionist history.

So, was the USA right or wrong in going newcular?

P.S. Pilger is an idiot. :yes:

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

We will never know if the USA was right or wrong to drop the bombs, because we do not know how many would have died if they hadn't. At the same time, the USA was not as innocent in starting the Pacific War as some may think - but that's not for this topic, at least not yet.

By the way, good to know that someone likes Alcatrazz. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oli8rM90Ek) ~;)

EDIT: I wouldn't denounce his article completely though. This, for example:


The National Archives in Washington contain US government documents that chart Japanese peace overtures as early as 1943. None was pursued. A cable sent on May 5, 1945 by the German ambassador in Tokyo and intercepted by the US dispels any doubt that the Japanese were desperate to sue for peace, including "capitulation even if the terms were hard".

I'm not sure about Japan, but I know Germany repeatedly offered peace deals when winning the war, with very generous terms towards Britain.

[PanzerJaeger]

It all depends on perspective.

From a human rights standpoint, it was nothing less than a war crime.

However, from a military outlook, it was entirely correct and even the moral choice. The ultimate form of utilitarianism.

Any student of military history knows that in total war those two schools of thought just don't mix. Personally, I always side with the military. In difficult times, sometimes human rights must be suspended to ensure they have a place in the future. (Or more practically, to save lives..)

[KrooK]

Jaeger point of view is correct IMO. We can't only talk about people died into Hiroshima. We must remember how many people would die if Japan did not surrender. Civilians into China, civilians into Japan (if country would be invaded), allied POWS into japan deathcamps and potencial allied casualties of invasion.
Comparing it I think loses into Hiroshima were ... small.
Atomic bombing saved much more lives that costed. And thats why it was right.

[Skandinav]

The bombs were dropped even though the japanese were beaten (although not officially, but american bombers had free runs in the skies above Japan and the pacific, Japan was in effect besieged with most industry either destroyed or closed down ), most probable it was an experiment, a show of strength or the often mentioned possibility that Japan had to be secured for american interests before Stalin, who was coming nearer with the Red Army to join the sack, had his part of the cake.

[CBR]

I sometime despair of this fashion for revisionist history.

There is nothing wrong with revisionism if it dispels myths.

But if the United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded in 1946 that the A-bombs were not needed then one would have to find some good arguments as to why the survey's conclusions were wrong.

Now one can argue that the civilian losses where not that different from what conventional bombings had produced, OTOH such bombings had not made Japan's population panic and give up so why should this one.

Even if they had to be used there was no military reason to hit civilian targets. This was a show of force and new capability, and a bit of bluff as USA did not have many bombs, and a remote area or military target could have been found instead. They did not have to destroy cities to get the attention of the Japanese government.


CBR

[Viking]

The bombings are a part of the 'greater good' nonsense. Apparently for some, human lives can valued, such that sacrificing a minority for the majority is morally right. The interests of the humans being sacrificed does not count because they are not numerous enough.

Another point being, that they, to save the lives of their own soldiers and the civilians of their own nation, find it morally correct to kill civilians, innocents that have not much of a say in the greater picture. This is more greater good nonsense. The lives of these civilians are at an expense because 'we are defending ourselves'; and that does of course make everything right. Losses have to be expected.

What we see here is a disgusting disrespect for human lives; bombs intended to kill as many innocents as possible. It demonstrates that these civilians were sacrificed, not to the best for humanity, but to the best for the United States; which is a country. National interests were at stake; not humanity's.

Other courses; i.e. not dropping the bomb; could lead to more deaths; which is expected when one fight for national interests.

[Husar]

Other courses; i.e. not dropping the bomb; could lead to more deaths; which is expected when one fight for national interests.
And how are more deaths suddenly to be expected and somehow better than less deaths? :inquisitive:
It's not like the Japanese weren't fighting for national interests either and killing a majority to "save" a minority is no better than killing a minority to "save" a majority.

[Viking]

And how are more deaths suddenly to be expected and somehow better than less deaths? :inquisitive:

It's expected, but not better. I still do not intend to have civilians killed; however there would have been as I was not the one in charge.


It's not like the Japanese weren't fighting for national interests either and killing a majority to "save" a minority is no better than killing a minority to "save" a majority.

I am not saying the Japanese are any better; quite on the contrary, they started this part of WW2.

[Martok]

Wow, I never thought I'd find myself in simultaneous agreement with both PanzerJaeger and Krook. Guess I'll have to look out for the flying pigs now. ~D



The bombings are a part of the 'greater good' nonsense.
No, they're not. In fact, it's patently absurd that anyone can say it was nonsense. As horrible as the bombings were, they *did* save lives -- far more than the poor souls lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Even the most conservative estimates show that were we to have invaded the Home Islands, American casualties alone would have been at least 500,000, with Japanese casualties (both military and civilian) in the millions. Some of the more pessimistic numbers estimated 2-4 million U.S. casualties and over 20 million Japanese. While I'll admit the latter estimates are probably a bit extreme, even the lower numbers are still horrifying.

Don't get me wrong: I don't like what we did. I don't like that our primary concern was to minimize American casualties at the cost of Japanese civilians who'd never harmed anyone. From a military perspective, though, I feel we made the right decision. The simple, brutal truth is that when the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki died, they ended up saving not only the lives of American GI's, but millions of their own countrymen as well.



Even if they had to be used there was no military reason to hit civilian targets. This was a show of force and new capability, and a bit of bluff as USA did not have many bombs, and a remote area or military target could have been found instead. They did not have to destroy cities to get the attention of the Japanese government.
I disagree. If we'd only hit military targets, I don't think the Japanese government would've reacted the same way. By deliberately targeting civilians, we were finally demonstrating a willingness to be as savage & inhumane to them as they had been to us. I honestly believe that it was that which finally got through to them.

[Viking]

No, they're not. In fact, it's patently absurd that anyone can say it was nonsense. As horrible as the bombings were, they *did* save lives -- far more than the poor souls lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Perhaps if one compare to the option of invading Japan, which I do not. :book:


From a military perspective, though, I feel we made the right decision.

Yes, from a military point of view it was an excellent decision, as history shows. I do certainly not contest that.

[CBR]

I disagree. If we'd only hit military targets, I don't think the Japanese government would've reacted the same way. By deliberately targeting civilians, we were finally demonstrating a willingness to be as savage & inhumane to them as they had been to us. I honestly believe that it was that which finally got through to them.
US had made that perfectly clear by the firebombing of Japanese cities months before they dropped the A-bombs. One example would be the air raid on March 9-10 1945 that killed an estimated 88,000 people.

In that sense the A-bombs were no different except using a new much more devastating weapon.


CBR

[PanzerJaeger]

There is nothing wrong with revisionism if it dispels myths.

But if the United States Strategic Bombing Survey concluded in 1946 that the A-bombs were not needed then one would have to find some good arguments as to why the survey's conclusions were wrong.


That's the problem with his argument. A 1946 survey reflects knowledge that was availible in 1946, not 1945.

The bredth of knowledge availble post-war, including detailed internal military and political assessments from the Japanese leadership itself, was far and away different from what was availible to Allied commanders at the time.


The most enduring lie is that the atomic bomb was dropped to end the war in the Pacific and save lives. "Even without the atomic bombing attacks," concluded the United States Strategic Bombing Survey of 1946, "air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that ... Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."


In any event, it seems as though people fall into two distinct camps on this issue. Either it was an appalling sacrifice of Japanese innocents just to scare the Russians, or it was a moral choice taken for the greater good of saving more lives than it took. In reality, I think history shows that in the minds of American commanders of the time, the two were not mutually exclusive. In fact, I think the historical record demonstrates that the decision to drop the bombs reflected both ambitions.

[KrooK]

Theory that bombings were not target into military objectives are not all truth.
Japanese commanders moved war industry from big facilities to smaller into living districts.
As Martok wrote...
Normal invasion on Japan would costs milions or tens of milions casualties. Japanese High Command had plan to change whole nation into kamikadze. Previous bombings, despite terrible damages into war industry, did not break Japan and their will to fight. In my opinion it was because nation blindly respected orders and high command did not care about nation. Teens of thousands people died every bombing raid but .... high command was safe. Other reason might be Japanse military doctrine - they wanted one great decisive battle where samurai spirit breaks enemies. Thats why normal bombings would not break Japan - they would patiently waiting.

Atomic bomb show rulers of Japan that they are not safe - that everyone will be destroyed.
And that Americans will not loose even 1 men more and that there will be no decisive battle.

Thats why they signed casefire.

I must tell that I do not regret people of Japan. Japanese war crimes were one of the most terribly during war. People of Japan simply got what they deserved.

[InsaneApache]

I think it might be useful to remember that civilians on all sides were targeted by the enemy military. After all it was they who formed the industrial effort needed to maintain the armed forces capabilities. As such they were fair game, if you like, to mass bombing. This was not just an effort to reduce industrial capacity but also done with the view of breaking the moral of the populace.

Another thing to remember was the Imperial Japanese governments desire to protect the emperor from facing trial as a war criminal. Something abhorrent to the Japanese, he was considered a living god. A get out clause was needed and the bombs furnished them with one.


There is nothing wrong with revisionism if it dispels myths

Perhaps, however it's important to view historical events in context. The planners of the bombing didn't have the luxury of hindsight. Unlike we have sixty odd years down the line.

[CBR]

That's the problem with his argument. A 1946 survey reflects knowledge that was availible in 1946, not 1945.
That is true but is not the only one of Pilger's reasons in his article.

The OP asks if it was right or wrong to go nuclear.

Since the survey of 1946 concludes it was not needed, one can say it was wrong to use them. But it still is a hot topic even today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

Now the US government might have had less information at the time that could have made them think it indeed was necessary. But I have not read anything convincing really.

Since Operation Downfall (the invasion of Japan) was not scheduled to start until November 1, it is not like USA was in a hurry unless we add the Soviets into it. And that is IMO the main reason why USA were so interested in dropping both the bombs it had as quickly as possible.


CBR

[Caius]

Other courses; i.e. not dropping the bomb; could lead to more deaths; which is expected when one fight for national interests.
If A-bombs weren't used... we would not be fearing nuclear wars. Why?

The 29th of August, 1949 IIRC the Soviets had an Fat Man replic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi0WMV7OPyQ). Which they used. No nukes thrown = maybe war, but no fear of nuclear apocalipsys.

By the way, thank Albert Einstein. And Oppenheimer too. The fathers of the a-bomb.

[CBR]

Soviets would have developed nuclear weapons anyway.

It's all speculative alternative history but without a Hiroshima and Nagasaki we would not have seen the horrors of nuclear weapons until too late perhaps. Someone might have been more willing to use them later on in a conflict with both sides having them.


CBR

[Caius]

we would not have seen the horrors of nuclear weapons
Who needs bombs when we have Chernobyl (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IToQ5fstrLc&feature=related)? Leaving Chernobyl aside... you are right, looks like the cuban missiles could be launched. And the US wouldn't be inhabitable for centuries.

Edit: There are some videos of forgotten towns, and this fits with the thread theme. Nuclear Flower (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBuTLKNnc30).

[KrooK]

And I think we have to mention one more thing.
Russians could invade Manjuria but .... do you really believe they were able to invade Japan.

[CBR]

It seems like Stalin wanted it but that does not mean they had a realistic capacity to do so. But they did not have to worry much about defender naval and air assets, so at least that would have made it easier to get to land.

But they did have enough to perform the landings on the Kurile Islands and it would have been a relative short step from Sakhalin to Hokkaidō so maybe it was possible.


CBR

[Viking]

I must tell that I do not regret people of Japan. Japanese war crimes were one of the most terribly during war. People of Japan simply got what they deserved.

:dizzy2:

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I must tell that I do not regret people of Japan. Japanese war crimes were one of the most terribly during war. People of Japan simply got what they deserved.

People who take this attitude towards anyone scare me. Every side committed war crimes, so should every side have a city or two bombed flat and the population drastically reduced or destroyed?

Anyways, a more interesting question is was Hiroshima a war crime or not? This question is something completely different as to whether it was justified given the information at the time.

[seireikhaan]

People who take this attitude towards anyone scare me. Every side committed war crimes, so should every side have a city or two bombed flat and the population drastically reduced or destroyed?

Anyways, a more interesting question is was Hiroshima a war crime or not? This question is something completely different as to whether it was justified given the information at the time.
Was it a war crime? Well, I think by definition, it most certainly was. Of course, it can be argued that if you're really going to truly beat someone into submission, one must take drastic and shocking measures.

I personally would have much rather preferred we put a smackdown on a military installation instead of masses of civilians. My belief is that we could have attained the same results without having to commit mass murder of innocents. Lets not forget that one of the main reasons we didn't nuke Tokyo was because we'd already flattened it with firebombs, its not as though Japan had much for chips left on the table by this point.

[KarlXII]

Atomic bomb show rulers of Japan that they are not safe - that everyone will be destroyed.
And that Americans will not loose even 1 men more and that there will be no decisive battle.

Thats why they signed casefire.

I must tell that I do not regret people of Japan. Japanese war crimes were one of the most terribly during war. People of Japan simply got what they deserved

Actually, Japan was never "safe". Large scale bombings were already underway, with the destruction of the Carrier Fleet, Japan had no means to project naval power to defend it's holdings. With Midway, Leyte Gulf, and the overall invasion of the Phillipines, Japan had no way to maintain a colonial empire in the Pacific. However, they were very stubborn, deeply entrenched into the belief of "Death before dishonour". The A-bombs were simply the final nail of an already shut coffin.

You condone the killing of civilians because of the leaders actions? That's almost like justifying the 9/11 attacks because of the waterboarding used.

[Caius]

I must tell that I do not regret people of Japan. Japanese war crimes were one of the most terribly during war. People of Japan simply got what they deserved.
Using that stupid logic, why not condemn the US for supporting dictatorships and civil wars? Not mentioning all the nations they "helped".

Where are the 30000 desaparecidos?

[InsaneApache]

Back OT.

Regarding the Soviets capability to attack the Japanese home islands, I doubt if they actually had the ability to do so. How large was the Soviet pacific fleet? Granted they occuped the Kuriles (sp) but they were largely unoccupied. It's conceivable that they could have moved to Honshu via Hokkaidō but that's a long way round, involving another amphibious landing on Honshu.

Also IIRC didn't the Japanese and Soviets clash on the Sino-Soviet border in the late thirties, early forties and the Japanese were roundly thrashed.

[CBR]

Regarding the Soviets capability to attack the Japanese home islands, I doubt if they actually had the ability to do so. How large was the Soviet pacific fleet? Granted they occuped the Kuriles (sp) but they were largely unoccupied. It's conceivable that they could have moved to Honshu via Hokkaidō but that's a long way round, involving another amphibious landing on Honshu.

Also IIRC didn't the Japanese and Soviets clash on the Sino-Soviet border in the late thirties, early forties and the Japanese were roundly thrashed.
I did a bit of searching and found this: http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43240

From that thread it seems that they had enough capacity to land a rifle corps. There was fighting on the Kurile Islands AFAIK and they took nearly 60,000 POW's there at the end.

They did fight each other in 1938-39: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Khasan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khalkhin_Gol with Zhukov involved in the last one.


CBR

[Caius]

Today, 64 (IIRC) Fat Man was launched at Nagasaki. When did Japan surrender?

[Ramses II CP]

To turn a phrase, war has a morality all it's own. Sitting here redolent in my expensive chair in front of my massive monitor enjoying an ice cold beer (Not really, I don't drink, but you get the point) my never-been-threatened ass happily mourns the people of Hiroshima... and Dresden, and the modern day people of South Ossetia and Georgia for that matter.

Sitting in a considerably less comfortable chair at the head of a military machine on the verge of victory in 1945, I would've dropped a dozen bombs if I'd had them and needed them to end the war. Quite bluntly I would've scorched Japan from end to end before I let them off with anything but a complete and unconditional surrender, and counted it cheap at twice the cost. Let no one forget Nanking.

War makes butchers of us all. Placing Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a special category is unjustified and unfair to the uncounted other war dead in uncounted other wars. Is a man less dead for being shot, stabbed, hacked apart by sword, or simply incinerated by conventional explosives?

No, bombing Hiroshima wasn't right. It cannot be right to kill, even in self defense... but sometimes it's necessary, and IMHO the only way to convincingly argue that it was not necessary to bomb Hiroshima is to go back and do it a different way your **** self. Everything else is just noise.

I gave two cents and asked for change back. :laugh4:

:egypt:

[Xipe Totec]

If I went round killing children I'd go down in history as a monster, the worst kind of human imaginable. In war we are trained and coerced into murdering many thousands of children in the most horrible way in their own homes along with their families, to scare the survivors into submission. Is that not wholly evil: the worst kind of mass terrorism we are capable of?

I don't believe deliberate killing of innocents can ever be morally justifiable. Hitler no doubt claimed that the Holocaust and the war of conquest would lead to a golden age of happy people forevermore.

If someone attacks you with a knife, you have a right to kill them with a gun in self defence. But If they kill your brother does that give you the right to kill their family, friends, neighbours - and anyone who lives nearby in vengeance?

Of course when your people are under threat you must do all you can to protect them, and wars once begun must be won at all costs. I am not convinced that anyone surrenders because you kill their children and families. It makes them rather angry. Japan didn't surrender because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the bombing of all their other cities. It was because they lost the battle on every front. Their navy and merchant fleet was entirely sunk and they could not supply their front-line troops. Complete defeat was only a matter of time and would not have required an invasion of the home islands.

Similarly the resources the Allies poured into bombing German cities had little effect on shortening the war in Europe. Half the crews died as huge numbers of planes were destroyed. The same airmen could have fought at the front to defeat the German army instead of their children to much more productive effect. The Nazis gave in because their cities were full of allied and Soviet troops and tanks, as well as German anti-Nazi resistance fighters, not because their kids were incinerated. When they bombed Britain we were outraged, it didn't make us want to surrender or give up the war. When USA bombed North Vietnam with even more tonnage than Japan took, they did not give up the struggle to unite their country.

We must be very careful what means we justify for the ends in the modern world. If a country is ruled by a tyrant their people suffer. But we do not have the right to fly round the world bombing every city and town just because we do not approve of their government. That's what Hitler would have done if he had won.

[Whacker]

So I'm a bit late to the fray here, but I'll weigh in. I couldn't put it better than Martok already said in his earlier post. I think it was a decision made at the time, and it was the "right" decision. From my readings, my view is that an invasion of Japan would have cost many millions of lives total, thus it was the lesser of two evils. A couple points to also throw out.

First, I don't know if I wholeheartedly agree on the targets being civilian. Generally I've always thought that in war, targets should be limited to things of military nature only. Obviously this never happens in practice, but it's still my general view. However, Martok had a good point. The Japanese at the time had a ... different perspective and outlook on life. By bombing a civilian target, it really is the ultimate display that we were willing to be just as savage as they were. (Yes, I've read quite a bit on WWII pacific history, and I do believe that the Japanese were far more "savage" than the US was)

Second, in regards to the surviving Japanese military leaders indicating that they were "ready to surrender"... Something to consider is a people's willingness to fight given what's at stake. I'm not a soldier, never have been and never will be, but if I try to put myself in a similiar situation. Say the US was being beaten, and we were about ready to be invaded by another nation. The US military and government leadership might be ready to surrender and might attempt to do so, but if someone were to step foot on my nation's soil, I'd probably pick up a gun at that point and start fighting, even as a civilian. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks like this, and I'd be willing to bet that the Japanese about that time would have thought the same thing. In short, not only did we have to beat them, we had to break them utterly.

Third, in regards to the bombings, I think the best way to say this is that someone had to do it at least once. In a military setting. I don't view this as any kind of justification whatsoever, BUT I still think the world had to see once what The Bomb could actually do when dropped on a major civilian center. No amount of test detonations or test scenarios could have substituted for it. So in a way, I think that doing so demonstrated to the world how terrible the weapons really are, and just how nasty they could be if used again in anger.

[KrooK]

Good post.
And you Maniac should mention that all the day Japanese army was massive murdering POWs and civilians - for example into China. Japanese army had full support of citizens of Japan.
Abombs show them that they have no chance and if they won't stop they will be killed like mad dogs.
And only this perspective forced "god on earth" to surrender.

[KarlXII]

Good post.
And you Maniac should mention that all the day Japanese army was massive murdering POWs and civilians - for example into China. Japanese army had full support of citizens of Japan.
Abombs show them that they have no chance and if they won't stop they will be killed like mad dogs.
And only this perspective forced "god on earth" to surrender.

So is the murder of German civlians alright because the Wermacht commited atrocities. You have very strange logic.

[Caius]

Abombs show them that they have no chance and if they won't stop they will be killed like mad dogs.

There is not a difference. They would die sooner or later.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Good post.
And you Maniac should mention that all the day Japanese army was massive murdering POWs and civilians - for example into China. Japanese army had full support of citizens of Japan.
Abombs show them that they have no chance and if they won't stop they will be killed like mad dogs.
And only this perspective forced "god on earth" to surrender.

KrooK, you aren't making the distinction between civilians and soldiers. Should the Red Army have destroyed Poland because of the Jedwabne pogrom?

[Xipe Totec]

To those who say that committing atrocities in war is justified to overcome an enemy doing the same, please consider where this logic leads. If we were morally right to terrorise the Japanese and German civilian populations to help win the second world war, then from their point of view the Imperial Japanese Empire were justified in terrorising Chinese civilians to break their will to resist, the Nazis were justified in terrorising East European and Russian people they were trying to subdue, Genghis Khan was justified in slaughtering millions of Chinese people to force other cities to surrender, and so on. :gah2:

When I am playing RTW and capture a large overpopulated city I often have to butcher the poor sods until my soldiers sword arms ache from overuse. In real life I don't think I'd be quite so keen to watch thousands of people die at my command just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The game mechanic of the Total War games tends to force you to be aggressive towards your neighbours and foster a paranoid 'get them before they inevitably attack you' state of mind. It works in the game because it makes it more challenging and keeps you motivated. Peace and ease in TW can get dull very quickly. The history of the last century surely proves that in the real world, especially in the modern world, there is far more to be gained from peaceful co-operation than conflict.:shakehands:

The reality of nuclear bombs in today's world and the future is that they surely will eventually fall into the hands of dangerous people who will not be simply deterred by the threat of massive retaliation. This cannot be stopped from happening in a world full of antagonism and mutual suspicion, fear and paranoia. It can only be prevented by full and open co-operation and agreement between all nations and peoples who wish to see the human species and civilisation survive long enough to achieve some of what we are capable. ~:cheers:

[KrooK]

Guys - whatever we see it
1) A bombs shorted war
2) Carpet bombings of german cities shorted war - how much resources Germany lost there
3) Germany and Japan started massive killings of civilians - and behaving same to finish war was necessary. Trust me or not but if war took longer, Germans and Japans would kill much more civilians than was killed into their cities.
4) Whole German and Japan populations supported their governments. Typical "innocent" Germans behave with Slavic workers same like "innocent" SS soldiers with villagers into Russia.

[Caius]

A bombs shorted war
Lets declare war on your country and drop Ivy Mike, Little Boy and Fat Man. Would you justify it? No. Because its your country, not mine. If I had to drop an A-bomb, I wouldn't do it. The US didn't need to drop the bomb to stop them and keep fighting. It was to show off they had the power.

Even if Japan deserved it, no one should use those bombs.

[Viking]

To those who say that committing atrocities in war is justified to overcome an enemy doing the same, please consider where this logic leads. If we were morally right to terrorise the Japanese and German civilian populations to help win the second world war, then from their point of view the Imperial Japanese Empire were justified in terrorising Chinese civilians to break their will to resist, the Nazis were justified in terrorising East European and Russian people they were trying to subdue, Genghis Khan was justified in slaughtering millions of Chinese people to force other cities to surrender, and so on. :gah2:

Indeed. Another point is that if you stoop to someone elses level, you are of course no better them no matter what the cause is.

[InsaneApache]

Sorry but I'm with Churchill on this one. When facing a foe as implacable as the Nazis or Imperial Japan, you will have to adopt the methods of those twin evil regimes or lose the war.

[KarlXII]

Guys - whatever we see it
1) A bombs shorted war
2) Carpet bombings of german cities shorted war - how much resources Germany lost there
3) Germany and Japan started massive killings of civilians - and behaving same to finish war was necessary. Trust me or not but if war took longer, Germans and Japans would kill much more civilians than was killed into their cities.
4) Whole German and Japan populations supported their governments. Typical "innocent" Germans behave with Slavic workers same like "innocent" SS soldiers with villagers into Russia.

So you think random innocents should suffer because of their countries leaders? Put the leaders on trial, not the people. Do you think 9/11 is justified because America has funded terrorists/dictators/insurgents?

[Caius]

Sorry but I'm with Churchill on this one. When facing a foe as implacable as the Nazis or Imperial Japan, you will have to adopt the methods of those twin evil regimes or lose the war.
You are as evil as the enemy are, and you become the very own enemy you want to hunt.

[King Jan III Sobieski]

Whether or not the U.S.A. was "morally" right or not...well, I'd have to say you'd have to consult your particular religion's holy books.

Whether or not they were "right" overall - as far as who deserved what (which is a slippery slope, I fully realize!) - but since we are looking at strictly the conflict known as World War II - well, the Japanese did perpetrate such things as the Nanking Massacre. During said massacre, the numbers killed lay somewhere between 100,000 - 300,000 deaths (depending who you believe, of course! Early Japanese estimates were in the range of a few hundred, but later Japanese researchers claim around 150,000-200,000. May nations believe it was between 200,000-300,000). During the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaka, the tolls were somewhere in the vicinity of 220,000.

I know people will argue that taking out the sins of the ruler out on the populace is evil in-of-itself, but I'm a firm believer that the agressor sets the rules of war. That's all.

[CBR]

Please keep this discussion civil. Thank you.


CBR

[Caius]

Please keep this discussion civil. Thank you.


CBR
This may sound stupid and provocative, but are you refering to someone in particular? I don't see this has gone a little out of the standarts.

[CBR]

The tone in some posts could be less confrontational, thats all. Just trying to improve the standards here :yes:


CBR

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Sorry but I'm with Churchill on this one. When facing a foe as implacable as the Nazis or Imperial Japan, you will have to adopt the methods of those twin evil regimes or lose the war.

About Nazi Germany or Japan? Maybe with Japan it shortened the war, but with Germany it didn't make a difference, and Churchill knew it. He was a bloodthirsty bastard. Great wit, decent politician, but a cold-hearted devil of a man.



1) A bombs shorted war

The ones of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, maybe, yes.


2) Carpet bombings of german cities shorted war - how much resources Germany lost there

Resources? Cities like Dresden were targeted for their ability to cause firestorms, because of the architecture. If by resources you mean humans, then yes, Germany lost a lot of "resources."

The war was finished by this point Krook. Germany was as finished as Poland was five years before. The bombing of Dresden had no effect on the war. Zero.


3) Germany and Japan started massive killings of civilians - and behaving same to finish war was necessary. Trust me or not but if war took longer, Germans and Japans would kill much more civilians than was killed into their cities.

Behaving in the same way as the leaders of the German and Japanese governments was not necessary to shorten or finish the war. The war wasn't shortened by the bombings of Germany. Not at all. Not by breaking numerous articles of the Hague Convention, not by killing thousands of civilians. Not at all.


4) Whole German and Japan populations supported their governments. Typical "innocent" Germans behave with Slavic workers same like "innocent" SS soldiers with villagers into Russia.

Of course Germans supported the Nazi government, at least at the beginning of the war - though I am sure you are aware that support drained considerably by the end of the war. At any rate, Germans didn't behave in the same way with Slavic workers as SS soldiers in Russia any more than ordinary Poles behaved towards Germans in the same way the communist government in Poland did.

You're painting with a broad brush. The resulting art looks nice, but the fact is, it's still art. More accurate sketches are with thinner brushes.

[InsaneApache]

Churchill may or may not have been a blood thirsty bastard, however it could be argued that without him WWII would have been lost. It's my opinion that he did what was necessary to win the war. The alternative is unthinkable.

Blimey, now I'm dragging my own thread off topic. :whip:

[Viking]

Sorry but I'm with Churchill on this one. When facing a foe as implacable as the Nazis or Imperial Japan, you will have to adopt the methods of those twin evil regimes or lose the war.

For the Japanese to win the war, they'd need to be able to invade the U.S.; or even, just get an airstrike on U.S. mainland. Something which they could not.

[KrooK]

The war wasn't shortened by the bombings of Germany. Not at all. Not by breaking numerous articles of the Hague Convention, not by killing thousands of civilians

Come on
1) 75% of 88mm guns were not send on front (for example to Italy) because they had to defend Germany?
2) How many tanks were not made because workers had to rebuild their facilities or their homes?
3) How many war materials had to be used into Germany instead of being send to front?


BTW After German bombings of Warsaw I don't see any reason why Dresden should not be destroyed.
Actually I completely support Churchill - he knew that Germans will stop only when see that only option is capitulation or anihilation.

[Ramses II CP]

I will say again that I think it's a mistake to somehow mark deaths by nuclear weapons as 'special' compared to deaths by other means. Conventional air bombing and simple long range shelling produce civilian casualties that are every bit as horrific and immoral as nuclear weapons. The dead are no less dead for being killed by 'ordinairy' weapons, and the maimed no less maimed. Every side in WWII killed on a vast scale, and slaughtered civilians from afar. Victor's guilt is only possible because the side being so indicted won. Their tactics, however derided and despised today, worked. If you really think you could bring about the same results without killing so many, go back and get to work.

I also feel obligated to once again point out that these ex post facto judgements are from people who never had to fear for their lives, never smelled the possibility of defeat, and didn't live through the phoenix like rise of Germany following their inglorious, essentially logistical, defeat in WWI. World war was never supposed to have been possible again, and yet within a generation it rolled around... and from the same nation that had supposedly been devestated in the first war.

The essential point here should be that war is not moral in any conventional sense. It exists beyond the bounds of customary personal rights and wrongs. It was not right to bomb Hiroshima (Or Nanking, or Dresden, etc, etc.) but those men on that battlefield on that day believed it to be necessary, and to second guess them from our comfy armchairs and cushy lives when their decisions brought victory (Even at Nanking, though victory of a more limited kind) is more than a little bit silly.

:egypt:

[Xipe Totec]

Churchill knew it. He was a bloodthirsty bastard. Great wit, decent politician, but a cold-hearted devil of a man.


Churchill was a great orator whose speeches certainly lifted Britain's morale and will to fight back after the humiliating defeat in Belgium and France in June 1940. Towards the end of the war the desire for vengeance overcame his reason on many occasions. He gave the green light for an Anthrax bombing raid upon German cities expected to kill upwards of 3 million civilians. It was only stopped because the bio-technicians in the USA producing the Bacillus anthracis cultures refused to continue the work for humanitarian reasons. It is also worth remembering that he was responsible for the ill-conceived expeditions to Gallipoli in WWI and Narvik in WWII, which were both planned and carried out with shocking disregard for the lives of the men involved, and incompetent military strategy.

A parallel would also be General Douglas MacArthur. An undoubtedly brilliant military strategist, he allowed his anti-communist obsession to warp his judgement and escalate the Korean War beyond the UN objective. He also strongly advocated that the USA drop its nuclear arsenal on Soviet industrial sites after WWII simply to help ensure the USA maintained its technological lead.

Both these cases demonstrate the importance of not abandoning your ethical beliefs simply to achieve a military victory. It may make a war longer and more bloody in the long run, but if you adopt the brutal methods of a military dictatorship in order to defeat a military dictatorship you are in danger of forgetting what you are fighting for.

I think the same is also true now with regards to fighting terrorism. If we give up the very human rights we have long cherished and use methods of torture, imprisonment without trial and global military intervention, then we have allowed a handful of ruthless evil killers who got lucky on one day in September to alter the whole course of human history and change the belief system of the whole free world. In other words we have handed them the greatest victory they could have ever dreamed of, and the best way for them to recruit new gullible fools to die for their sterile cause.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

1) 75% of 88mm guns were not send on front (for example to Italy) because they had to defend Germany?

Yes, but I don't disagree that bombing valid targets like factories is alright, I disagree that bombing cities is alright for the purpose of killing civilians.


3) How many war materials had to be used into Germany instead of being send to front?

By the bombing of Dresden, this didn't matter. The war was over, finished, there was nothing that could change that beyond some sort of super weapon. To top it off, Dresden wasn't even a great target - except for the way the buildings were made, which made a firestorm likely and ensured maximum civilian casualties.


he knew that Germans will stop only when see that only option is capitulation or anihilation.

He was completely wrong. A large portion of Germans, including much of the military heirarchy, wanted peace. Even Hitler wanted peace in 1941.

[KrooK]

MANIAC - YOUR LAST POST IS ATTEMPT TO FALSE HISTORY

Maybe Germans wanted peace but this would be peace when
1) They would kill Jews, Gypsies then Slavs
2) They would spread around the world with their f.... doctrine
Sorry but bombing German cities caused much less victims than signing this peace.

During carpet bombing of Dresden Germany still fought. On western front they were thinking only about capitulation but on eastern - soldiers have to fight for each meter. War was still hard there.

Maybe we should think about something else. What would happen if
"German and Japan society did not vote on nazis or militarist parties and war is not starting."
In the moment their vote on people whom objective was spreading their race all over the world and
destroying "minor" races - they agreed on having big bomb into their dining room:laugh4:

To sum up
LONG LIVE ARTHUR HARRIS - MAN WHO HAVE EGGS INSTEAD OF BEING HIPPIE

[Conradus]

He was completely wrong. A large portion of Germans, including much of the military heirarchy, wanted peace. Even Hitler wanted peace in 1941.


Before or after the start of Barbarossa?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

MANIAC - YOUR LAST POST IS ATTEMPT TO FALSE HISTORY

You're funny...


Maybe Germans wanted peace but this would be peace when
1) They would kill Jews, Gypsies then Slavs

I love your generalizations. No, if there had been peace in 1941 there's a good chance the Jews would've been shipped to Madagascar. That's not very nice or anything, but it's a whole lot better than death.


2) They would spread around the world with their f.... doctrine

So Germans are now a virus? You're aware that the majority of Germans weren't Nazis, right?


Sorry but bombing German cities caused much less victims than signing this peace.

Far from it. The war was already over. Not bombing Dresden wouldn't have changed a thing.


During carpet bombing of Dresden Germany still fought. On western front they were thinking only about capitulation but on eastern - soldiers have to fight for each meter. War was still hard there.

On both fronts German generals wanted peace, an end to the way - that was a large reason for July 20th - and if Germany was fighting the Soviets, why are you - a Pole - complaining?


Maybe we should think about something else. What would happen if
"German and Japan society did not vote on nazis or militarist parties and war is not starting."

Or "what would happen if the Allies had never given them reason to with Versailles" or "if humans had never evolved from monkeys" or "if the world had never been created?"

You realize that less than half of the German population voted for Hitler, right?


In the moment their vote on people whom objective was spreading their race all over the world and
destroying "minor" races - they agreed on having big bomb into their dining room:

You know that when Hitler was voted in that everyone - even the Jews - thought it was just bluster, right?


LONG LIVE ARTHUR HARRIS - MAN WHO HAVE EGGS INSTEAD OF BEING HIPPIE

How would you feel if I went long live Wolfram von Richthofen? I mean, you know, because of the anti-semetism among Poles, you deserved it, right? :rolleyes:


Before or after the start of Barbarossa?

Both.

[KrooK]

Red Baron - he was OK

If 75% of Germans did not belong to NSDAP but
1) voted for it
2) served into army
3) happily agreed on conquering half of europe
They supported Hitler.

What was so bad into Versailles?
That Germany had to give back provinces stolen into 1772,1793 and 1795, with polish majority.
Yes so bad - thief had to give back stolen property.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Red Baron - he was OK

Not talking about the Red Baron, but his cousin Wolfram. Manfred von Richthofen was dead by the Second World War.


If 75% of Germans did not belong to NSDAP but
1) voted for it

Very much incorrect. In the only election where reliable polls of the German people were conducted with a good selection of parties, the Nazi Party received 43.9% of the vote. Even if 75% of Germans were actively supporting Hitler - which was understandable given the circumstances, those in Dresden were not necessarily guilty of any crime.


What was so bad into Versailles?
That Germany had to give back provinces stolen into 1772,1793 and 1795, with polish majority.
Yes so bad - thief had to give back stolen property.

If you say that the other lands and cash Germany sacrificed were not German, well, I'm not going to go there. The Polish question can be debated, but I've been through this with someone else at the TWC. Prussia has as long a German history as it has a Polish history, or longer. Prussia wasn't originally Polish either, Krook.

[KrooK]

Looks like you into Germany call Prussia one province but there were 2 prowinces - since Xth century. This is biggest mistake that can be made describing these provinces.
Western (or Kings) Prussia with Gdansk as a capital were always Slavic and had polish majority
From 965 to 1308, from 1462 (practically 1454) to 1793, from 1919 to 1939 and from 1945 to eternity
-as for now about 757 years.
German 1308-1462 (practically 1454), 1793-1919, 1939-1945 - about 274 years.
Yep - if accoring to you 274 is similar to 757 - maybe even bigger - you can improve math.

Easter (or Order) Prussia with Koningsbers were never polish and Poles did not want it. Original tribes of Prussia were Balts tribes. Into history only once Poland really wanted conquer Order Prussia was into 1454 when German people of Prussia had enough of German Teutonic Order and begged polish king for help. After world war 2 poorer part of province was given Poland as a compensation for lost provinces on east. Happens - on the other hand if Germany did not start war, Poland would not lost half of the country.

Silesia - It must been old German region when people get mad. That Germans from 1000 years suddenly took weapon and 3 times started rising to join Poland (1919,1920,1921). Strange things happens after big wars.... BTW - Silesia became German into mid of XVIIIth century, right ( I don't count Austrian silesia due to tolerance into that country).

Greater Poland - theory that it was not polish territory is... Sorry but its simply so stupid that its hard to imagine. Look at map - first polish capital, one of 2 most important provinces for last 1000 years. This province it place when Poland was born. This province before 1793 had same connections with Germany like North Pole with Sahara. Claiming that it is German province would be like claiming that Munich is part of Poland.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

I'll address that in a moment. I had a very interesting recap of German-Polish history with a Pole at the TWC, and I'll gladly repost that here, since it's practically the same thing.

[KarlXII]

BTW After German bombings of Warsaw I don't see any reason why Dresden should not be destroyed.

And this is where your argument goes over the line. This is not logical reason, this is pure revenge. Commiting vengeful acts that specifically target civilians makes you no better than the Gestapo.

I personally find the bombings of Dresden a stupid and shameful act, and will not defend it on the basis of revenge. However, I believe the Allies needed to show Germany that if their leadership did not surrender, then the people would suffer the already staggering effects of prolonged war and bombing. Dresden was not the right way to do it. I'm only glad that German nationalism wasn't very active post-war, and that the West managed to smooth things over and start anew.

(Off topic: Does the Bundeswehr have units that were active in WW2? If so, is the history of the unit celebrated by the soldiers? (For instance, the American 1st Infantry Division celebrates it's long history and activity))

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

(Off topic: Does the Bundeswehr have units that were active in WW2? If so, is the history of the unit celebrated by the soldiers? (For instance, the American 1st Infantry Division celebrates it's long history and activity))

Well, the Luftwaffe was completely disbanded in 1946, so there aren't any continuous units for sure. There is a Jagdgeschwader 71 ("Richthofen") that exists today and also existed in WWII, but I believe that the modern JG 71 is not considered a successor of that unit.

As for the Heer, I don't think any of the modern German divisions date prior to 1956. The brigades, on the other hand, might, though I doubt it.

German military tradition, on a more general basis, is very interwoven from most of the periods in our recent history. For example, the Wachbataillon does many traditional Prussian drills (the reason the Kar 98k is still used in that unit), but other traditions have "evolved" since then. Much of Germany's military music is from the Kaiserreich or earlier.


I'm only glad that German nationalism wasn't very active post-war, and that the West managed to smooth things over and start anew.

German nationalism was very active, it was just a different sort of nationalism. More pro-West. ~;)


EDIT:

For Krook.


In 1224, Deutschordensland was formed - this was under the control of the Teutonic Knights. That state was succeeded in 1466 by Royal Prussia, which was indeed a Polish fief (though it is slightly more complex than that), and in 1525 by the Herzogtum Preußen. The Herzogtum Preußen, at least, was largely German-speaking. This was succeeded in 1618 by Brandenburg-Preußen, which was German. That was followed in 1701 by the Kingdom of Prussia, und so weiter.

[PanzerJaeger]

To sum up
LONG LIVE ARTHUR HARRIS - MAN WHO HAVE EGGS INSTEAD OF BEING HIPPIE

*bites tongue.. :shame:

Kudos to Mars for keeping things civil.

Some would argue that reigning in the breakaway provinces that had been in German possession for over a century and were lost after the First World War had some justification... about as much as the Allies had in imposing the conditions of Versailles. ~;)

[KrooK]

Maniac - that under "EDIT" seems to be interesting but could you use english names - looks like Poles and Germans are using completely different names on historical events.


Before you start reading I'm explaining that I'm using only one name of Provinces but before 1466 Western Prussia was called Pomorze Gdanskie, then Prussia (same like Eastern Prussia), then Kings Prussia and then Pomorze Gdańskie again.

In Polish sources Teutonic Order was invited to Poland into 1226 and given Chełmno region as vasal of polish prince Konrad Mazowiecki. Order conquered east prussia starting from east side of Vistula, then through Baltic shore and in the end attacking to the end of Prussia. Order did not form anything on western side of river before 1308/1309 when Order betrayed polish king Wladyslaw Lokietek and conquered Western Prussia (which was called Pomorze Gdańskie).

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Deutschordensland - State of the Teutonic Knights
Herzogtum Preußen - Duchy of Prussia
Brandenburg-Preußen - Brandenburg-Prussia

[Kralizec]

He was completely wrong. A large portion of Germans, including much of the military heirarchy, wanted peace. Even Hitler wanted peace in 1941.

He only wanted peace with Britain so he could focus on the Soviet Union, or do you disagree?
More generally, the goal of every war is peace. That's not to say that everyone would like the sort of peace the nazis were going after.

I don't know if the Germans made any specified proposals to the western allies before 1945, but with the momentum the allies had at that time and considering Germany's behaviour both in and before the war, it would have been folly to accept anything but unconditional surrender. Can you imagine Hitler saying "okay mr. Roosevelt and Churchill, you win this time. I'll leave France and focus business with the Russians and we forget everything that has transpired in the west", after wich the three shake hands?

As for the A-bombs, I consider them to have been a tragic necessity. Like Germany, Japan would have to be thoroughly humbled if you want the assurance that the following peace would also be enduring.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

He only wanted peace with Britain so he could focus on the Soviet Union, or do you disagree?

I don't disagree at all (well, he also had some silly racial theories as to why he didn't want war with the British, who were apparently "fellow Germanics" or something). The Soviet Union was [also] an evil empire and deserved to fall.


More generally, the goal of every war is peace. That's not to say that everyone would like the sort of peace the nazis were going after.

Well, Eastern Europe would probably not have appreciated being annexed, and I don't think the Jews would've liked Madagascar much (this is if peace is achieved before the Holocaust). I'm not saying that a peace in 1941 would've been good for everyone, I'm just saying that it was probably better. We would've saved the lives of many who died in the Holocaust, the lives of most soldiers who died after 1941, and the lives of countless civilians while retaining democracy everywhere west of and including Great Britain.


I don't know if the Germans made any specified proposals to the western allies before 1945, but with the momentum the allies had at that time and considering Germany's behaviour both in and before the war, it would have been folly to accept anything but unconditional surrender. Can you imagine Hitler saying "okay mr. Roosevelt and Churchill, you win this time. I'll leave France and focus business with the Russians and we forget everything that has transpired in the west", after wich the three shake hands?

This is in 1941, remember, before the Wannsee Conference. Anyways, Hitler was a little scumbag, but he did offer. Whether it was declined for better or worse, well, we'll never know.


As for the A-bombs, I consider them to have been a tragic necessity. Like Germany, Japan would have to be thoroughly humbled if you want the assurance that the following peace would also be enduring.

Germany was humbled in WWI, and look where that led - whereas after WWII, we weren't humbled but allowed to rebuild, were included in the plans of the West, and so forth. And which peace lasted longer?

[Viking]

I will say again that I think it's a mistake to somehow mark deaths by nuclear weapons as 'special' compared to deaths by other means. Conventional air bombing and simple long range shelling produce civilian casualties that are every bit as horrific and immoral as nuclear weapons. The dead are no less dead for being killed by 'ordinairy' weapons, and the maimed no less maimed.


That's very true.


If you really think you could bring about the same results without killing so many, go back and get to work.

Straw man argument; if I'm allowed to assume it's pointed at me.


I also feel obligated to once again point out that these ex post facto judgements are from people who never had to fear for their lives, never smelled the possibility of defeat, and didn't live through the phoenix like rise of Germany following their inglorious, essentially logistical, defeat in WWI. World war was never supposed to have been possible again, and yet within a generation it rolled around... and from the same nation that had supposedly been devestated in the first war.

Germany capitulated more than two months prior to the bombs; what defeat would that be? Furthermore, what exactly would make my thoughts more clear, rational and correct if I was fearing for my life or defeat?


The essential point here should be that war is not moral in any conventional sense. It exists beyond the bounds of customary personal rights and wrongs. It was not right to bomb Hiroshima (Or Nanking, or Dresden, etc, etc.) but those men on that battlefield on that day believed it to be necessary, and to second guess them from our comfy armchairs and cushy lives when their decisions brought victory (Even at Nanking, though victory of a more limited kind) is more than a little bit silly.

Funny that you should see it that way; if a war is fought to preserve 'the better society', then, if the said society should commit the cruelties that it claims to fight in the process, then the whole affair is a contradiction.

[Meneldil]

I love your generalizations. No, if there had been peace in 1941 there's a good chance the Jews would've been shipped to Madagascar. That's not very nice or anything, but it's a whole lot better than death.


Except that you're likely wrong. Though some historians disagree, the Holocaust is widely seen as being planned as early as (late) 1941.



Even if 75% of Germans were actively supporting Hitler - which was understandable given the circumstances, those in Dresden were not necessarily guilty of any crime.
I fail to see how it was somehow understandable given the circumstances.
A lot of country faced huge political/social/economical crisis during the 30's (though Germany probably had it really bad). Not all of them elected racist and fascist nutjobs.

Some german decided not to support Hitler. They weren't genius, farseers or what not. Why do you think Hitler was - unlike his italian comrade Musso - widely despised through western Europe, even among other european racist and fascist tools ? Because he was seen as vulgar, dangerous and somewhat crazy. The germans knew it all along.

I'm not found of german bashing (mostly because I'm pretty sure France and other countries could have done the same thing), but that whole "it's understandable given the circomstances" speech is nothing but - sorry - crap.



I don't disagree at all (well, he also had some silly racial theories as to why he didn't want war with the British, who were apparently "fellow Germanics" or something). The Soviet Union was [also] an evil empire and deserved to fall.
Does that mean that Hitler was right in invading USSR and causing million of deaths ?

The only valuable peace back then would have been one that followed Germany's defeat and Hitler's death sometime between 1937 and 1939.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Post

I can't reply to this yet because Opera keeps crashing. ~:(

[Papewaio]

Behaving in the same way as the leaders of the German and Japanese governments was not necessary to shorten or finish the war. The war wasn't shortened by the bombings of Germany. Not at all. Not by breaking numerous articles of the Hague Convention, not by killing thousands of civilians. Not at all.


Does the Hague Convention actually apply after one side has broken it to the other side?

My assumption was that a convention only applies as long as both sides adher to it. Like any contract, once broken by one side the other side is no longer under obligations to follow it. If anything the breaker of the contract is the one more heavily penalised.

Also I don't think the scenarios of the Allies are comparable with the Axis. The Axis mass murdered civilians after they had caputered them and they had surrended. Allies attacks where against an enemy population not under their control and one that had initiated the state of total war.

=][=

With respect to WWII Nuclear bombings. Japan might have been thinking of surrendering and talking about it, but balance that against their actions at the end phase of the war.

Look at what happened in Okininawa, that was a model of what would have happened in an invasion of mainland Japan.

Also while talking about peace, the Japanese acts were one of sending POWs on death marches. If one was serious about surrender then executing prisioners in mass is not a good way to gain it.

So while Japan was refusing unconditional surrender and was killing POWs, then I think whatever means was neccesary to save them was justified. Saving millions more of civilians was an added bonus when compared with the horrific costs of an invasion, or even worse the projections for starvation (as like Saddam the elite would have survived, but the civilians would most likely have lost millions).

End of the day, if the Japanese hadn't started total war and had surrended then they would not have seen a pair of rising suns on thier cities. Their actions brought about the consequences.

[KrooK]

Good post
Even if few of Germans did not active support Hitler, they did it passive. They worked into industry (making ammo, tanks of Cyclone B) or into railway (sending these ammo tanks or cyclone B to front of death camps). Thats why they should expect war.

[Ramses II CP]

That's very true.

:yes:


Straw man argument; if I'm allowed to assume it's pointed at me.

It isn't pointed at anyone, it's meant as an invitation to contemplate the ultimate uselessness of recriminations without resolutions. You might really hate what was done in WWII and truly believe it was a hideous wrong, and yet it is not feasible to attempt a useful proof that it was not necessary without doing the impossible. We're at the point in the debate where one side says 'Yes' in a very loud voice, and the other one says 'No' in a very loud voice over and over again with no acceptable means of decision.


Germany capitulated more than two months prior to the bombs; what defeat would that be? Furthermore, what exactly would make my thoughts more clear, rational and correct if I was fearing for my life or defeat?

You deliberately misunderstand my point, human thought is rarely rational, correct, or clear during a war on either side. If it were rational the war itself almost certainly would never have happened. My point is the emotional, visceral experience of the fear of defeat, of the stench of your war dead clogging your nostrils, and the all too recent memory of bloody reversals in the field. We view WWII from a distance so great that it is reduced to numbers, so many tanks lost, so many gallons of fuel burned, and so many bullets fired. The men who made the decision to scorch Dresden personally knew dozens or hundreds of their fellows who had died to make victory possible, to break the German air power and allow the raid on Dresden, among others.

If they believed Dresden was necessary at that time then I believe it is absurd to question their decision on the basis of some imaginary 'objective' or 'rational' perspective concocted by people who have lived their lives in peace mourning only those dead of accident, disease, and age. Our whole generation has no experience of war on the scale that they did, no comparitive mass losses of life, and no basis for judging them across the decades of relative peace which have followed their accomplishments.

And you should note that I don't view Dresden as any more special or unique than Nanking, Nagasaki, or any of the other mass casualty events in the war.


Funny that you should see it that way; if a war is fought to preserve 'the better society', then, if the said society should commit the cruelties that it claims to fight in the process, then the whole affair is a contradiction.

It is the nature of a well developed society that in order for it to exist it must inherently deny it's priveleges to a multitude for every member which enjoys them. I do not believe that our current existence (Here I refer to 'Western' civilization, as much as it can be grouped together, as a whole) is any less destructive than was our conduct during WWII, though the lives are not cost by bullets and so more difficult to cleanly count. You seem to believe that society should be built on moral grounds and lifted high on principle alone, but I find that idea naive in the extreme.

I will say again that war has a morality all it's own, which cannot be reasonably compared to our peace time concepts of right and wrong. In war, as in any time when existence itself is threatened, necessity will count ahead of morality and the fact that the victors still exist to feel guilty is a undoubtable indication of the correctness of their actions with regard to necessity.

:egypt:

[InsaneApache]

Excellent post. :bow:

Look at it another way. What would the Axis have done with the bomb, if they'd had it? IIRC New York and London were in their sights. Herr Schickelgruber had wet dreams about bombing the 'canyons' of New York.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Except that you're likely wrong. Though some historians disagree, the Holocaust is widely seen as being planned as early as (late) 1941.

The Madagascar plan was also being "planned" - it was thrown aside in large part due to the war continuing, apparently.


I fail to see how it was somehow understandable given the circumstances.
A lot of country faced huge political/social/economical crisis during the 30's (though Germany probably had it really bad). Not all of them elected racist and fascist nutjobs.

Germany had one of the most dire situations in Europe. In 1933 a man was elected who gave work, gave Germany power again, got old lands back, built road networks...so yes, it's understandable that some Germans supported him.


Some german decided not to support Hitler. They weren't genius, farseers or what not. Why do you think Hitler was - unlike his italian comrade Musso - widely despised through western Europe, even among other european racist and fascist tools ? Because he was seen as vulgar, dangerous and somewhat crazy. The germans knew it all along.

You're wrong, simply because he wasn't seen the same way in Germany. He was seen as bad in the rest of Europe for the same reason that he was seen as good in Germany - propaganda and land expansion. Understandable that the Allies didn't like the Anchluss and the annexation of the Sudetenland. Also understandable that the German people (and Austrian people - check out the vote tallies) loved that.


I'm not found of german bashing (mostly because I'm pretty sure France and other countries could have done the same thing), but that whole "it's understandable given the circomstances" speech is nothing but - sorry - crap.

I don't want to sound like a Nazi sympathizer or anything, and I'm not, so I won't continue this post.


Does that mean that Hitler was right in invading USSR and causing million of deaths ?


Would the Allies have been right in invading Germany if Germany hadn't made aggressive moves after 1938? Honest question.


Does the Hague Convention actually apply after one side has broken it to the other side?

Yes. The party breaking the convention must pay compensation, but the convention itself makes no mention of what happens if a party breaks the articles of the convention in regards to what the other side may do, only if the other party is not a signatory in the first place.


Also I don't think the scenarios of the Allies are comparable with the Axis. The Axis mass murdered civilians after they had caputered them and they had surrended. Allies attacks where against an enemy population not under their control and one that had initiated the state of total war.

If the Allies had simply bombed factories, even if the workers were still inside, you would not find me raising any objections whatsoever. However, Dresden implies that all Germans, down to the youngest child, were guilty - which is an insinuation that I hope nobody will make.

Secondly, whoever said that the German people (as a whole) had a choice whether to work in factories and serve in the army is talking very nicely and with a good deal of romanticism, but the reality is twofold. First of all, Germans were gripped in patriotism, the likes of which were seen in Britain, Canada, and America as well. Secondly, try to refuse work or the army if you're a fit male, and see what happens. Practically, you could not refuse. Besides, we're talking about people in factories, not concentration camp guards. It's not as if there's actually a moral dilemma to working in a factory.


Look at it another way. What would the Axis have done with the bomb, if they'd had it? IIRC New York and London were in their sights.

Possibly, but it didn't happen, so we won't know.

[KrooK]

Germany had one of the most dire situations in Europe. In 1933 a man was elected who gave work, gave Germany power again, got old lands back, built road networks...so yes, it's understandable that some Germans supported him.

Yes who paid for that.... part of community had been robbed, kicked from community and became "talking animals".




Secondly, try to refuse work or the army if you're a fit male, and see what happens. Practically, you could not refuse. Besides, we're talking about people in factories, not concentration camp guards. It's not as if there's actually a moral dilemma to working in a factory.

Yep - try to refuse. No care that you are working into IG Farben or into German Railways.
No care that you see how Jews and Poles are being shot on the streets.
If you are not refusing prepare on big fat bomb straight into your a... :clown: And all its because 10 years later you have elected wrong guy. RESPONSIBILITY MANIAC - RESPONSIBILITY

And please finish with that Madagascar because "Jews on Magadascar" was being used by polish nationalist while Germans yell something like "clear are from Oder to Don".

Bombing Hiroshima and Dresden was necessary. Here we are discussing about German war crimes and we know that millions were killed but millions survived. Into 1945 possibility of mass murdering people under control of IIIrd Reich by dying regime had to be concerned and generally was big. Thats why Brits and Americans could not play with Germans and show them what can happen if they will not capitulate.
Maniac you are telling that if peace were signed Germans (i will not be talking hitlerists because its lying about history) would not kill Jews. Its false - they would kill more. Final solution was performed during war, when front was most important. What would happen if inner situation was most important... Sorry for you German patriotism but I'm sure your ancestors WOULD KILL OR ENSLAVE EVERYONE UNDER THEIR CONTROL. Germans should be glad that they were not punished fro their cimes like they were punishing innocent people.

[Husar]

Good post
Even if few of Germans did not active support Hitler, they did it passive. They worked into industry (making ammo, tanks of Cyclone B) or into railway (sending these ammo tanks or cyclone B to front of death camps). Thats why they should expect war.

Just like anyone else who supports the war effort of her or his country by paying taxes. Kill them all. :2thumbsup:

[PanzerJaeger]

Yep - try to refuse. No care that you are working into IG Farben or into German Railways.
No care that you see how Jews and Poles are being shot on the streets.
If you are not refusing prepare on big fat bomb straight into your a... :clown: And all its because 10 years later you have elected wrong guy. RESPONSIBILITY MANIAC - RESPONSIBILITY

I wasn't aware that a IG Farben employed every working German, and said Germans witnessed poles and Jews shot in the streets on their way to work. These false generalizations are not conducive to a constructive discussion.



Bombing Hiroshima and Dresden was necessary. Here we are discussing about German war crimes and we know that millions were killed but millions survived. Into 1945 possibility of mass murdering people under control of IIIrd Reich by dying regime had to be concerned and generally was big. Thats why Brits and Americans could not play with Germans and show them what can happen if they will not capitulate.

Bombing Dresden had no effect on the Holocaust or the German's will to fight on. It was a deliberate attempt to kill as many civilians, including women, children and the elderly as possible, and demonstrates that the Allies were just as capable of taking innocent life as the Axis. No credible justification, including your own, has been posed that demonstrates that the bombing was necessary. Even if one could, in retrospect, make such a justification, Arthur Harris' own words condemn the event into history as a war crime of epic proportions.


Maniac you are telling that if peace were signed Germans (i will not be talking hitlerists because its lying about history) would not kill Jews. Its false - they would kill more.

What else does your crystal ball tell you?


Final solution was performed during war, when front was most important. What would happen if inner situation was most important... Sorry for you German patriotism but I'm sure your ancestors WOULD KILL OR ENSLAVE EVERYONE UNDER THEIR CONTROL. Germans should be glad that they were not punished fro their cimes like they were punishing innocent people.

Your generalizations show a distinct lack of knowledge on the subject. The Jewish situation was brought to the forefront when Hitler realized he would likely not win the war. He urgently sought the destruction of the Jews before the war was lost as part of his legacy. Prior to that realization, he showed interest in simply removing them from Europe. Also, those who planned and operated the deathcamps were carefully vetted by Heinrich Himmler for a particular amorality, and the camps were both secluded and shown to the German public in propaganda as completely different than reality. Not to mention non-German guards were used as often as possible. Why were such efforts made if Germans in general could not wait to kill everyone in their control?

You may want to have a look at this.. although I'm sure you're aware of such events. Poland is far from innocent.

Poland faces up to the horror of its own role in the Holocaust

Sylvie Kauffmann
Thursday December 19, 2002
The Guardian

In May 2000 Polish historians were staggered by revelations in a book, Neighbours: The Destruction Of The Jewish Community In Jedwabne, Poland (Princeton), written by Jan Gross, a Polish academic who had emigrated to the United States.
In the book he demonstrated, with evidence to prove it, that in July 1941 the Jewish population of Jedwabne, a village in northern Poland, had not died at German hands, as the official version would have it, but had been slaughtered by fellow villagers.

The revelations had the effect of a time bomb. The facts, confirmed by investigative reporters on the Warsaw daily, Rzeczpospolita, took months to sink into the Polish subconscious. This was partly because the capital's other leading daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, decided to join the fray only six months later, after initially dragging its feet at the behest of its editor, Adam Michnik, a man torn between his double identity as both a Jew and a Pole.

Once it had gathered momentum, the controversy came to dominate the Poles' social and political life, upset their received ideas, forced them to face up to their history of anti-semitism, drove the Catholic church into a corner and prompted President Aleksander Kwasniewski to apologise to the Jewish community during an official ceremony in Jedwabne.

The US-educated Polish historian Pawel Machcewicz believes it to have been "the most important debate about contemporary history" since the fall of Poland's communist regime in 1989. The controversy has been given a new lease of life by the publication of a 1,500-page report, Wokol Jedwabne (On Jedwabne), drawn up by historians and researchers headed by Machcewicz.

The report is remarkable, not least because the idea of commissioning it came from the National Remembrance Institute (IPN), an independent body set up by the Polish parliament in 2000 to succeed the Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland. That this newly fledged historical institute should have been given as its first task the job of investigating Gross's research in a climate verging at times on hysteria is a sign there has been a sea change in Polish attitudes.

"It's a courageous piece of work," says the political pundit Aleksander Smolar, who in June 1987 contributed an important article on the Jewish-Polish question to the French magazine Esprit. "For many intellectuals here it was an opportunity to reassess the image of Polish history," says Machcewicz, "an image which we ourselves created, and a martyrology that had been questioned in some quarters."

The second remarkable aspect of the IPN report is that it shows that the scale of the pogroms committed by Poles was much greater than was thought: on top of those in Jedwabne and Radzilow, which occurred within three days of each other and resulted in the greatest number of deaths, the report reveals a score of other villages in the region where Poles attacked their Jewish neighbours between June and August 1941.

Konstanty Gebert, editor of Midrasz, a Jewish monthly, says: "Jedwabne is no longer the aberrant exception that people have tried to forget. The IPN closes the debate on one essential point: from now on, denial will be impossible. And it will also be impossible to accuse the Poles of not facing the facts."

But the IPN investigators did more than give a description of events; they put them in historical context. The IPN historians discovered that in several cases German army commandos had actively encouraged the Polish population to attack the Jews; that the region of Lomza, where the pogroms took place, was an area where the rightwing nationalistic movement Endejca had been active in the 30s, thus preparing the ground for anti-semitism; and, above all, that the two very difficult years of Soviet occupation just endured by the region had aggravated relations between Jews and Poles because the latter often regarded the former as having collaborated with the Soviet occupying forces.

Another revelation comes from documents relating to about 60 trials held in northeastern Poland from the end of the 40s to the beginning of the 50s, previously unknown to historians. It is a mystery why the trials, which were mounted with the backing of the communist regime, were covered up. "It was the Stalinist period," Machcewicz points out, "and the trials were organised locally against people who had collaborated with the Germans. But neither the communists nor the local authorities had any interest in publicising them. Everyone wanted to forget."

The controversy has had a spectacular effect, not only on Poland's collective conscience and post-communist left, but on the Catholic church, whose attitude remains "very complex", according to Smolar, or "at best, highly ambiguous", in Gebert's words.

Work by historians on what happened during and just after the war has not yet been completed. Anna Bikont, a journalist who has just finished a book on Jedwabne, predicts there will be other grim revelations that will even taint "our great national hero, the symbol of all that is good about Poland, Armia Krajowa" - the famous army of the interior that resisted the Soviet invader, but which, according to Bikont's researches, "killed Jews in the northeast at the end of the war".

"In any country the debate about the collective memory is part of democratic culture," says Smolar. "The IPN's report was attacked by virtually no one - the right has run out of arguments."

Machcewicz, who points out that more than 2 million non-Jewish Poles died during the second world war, is not afflicted by doubt: "As a historian, I reject the way the German press has interpreted this debate: it has claimed that we somehow share responsibility for what happened. No, the Poles were indisputably victims of the second world war. But that shouldn't stop us recognising the horrible truth of the pogroms."



In the first half of 1938, numerous laws were passed restricting Jewish economic activity and occupational opportunities. In July, 1938, a law was passed (effective January 1, 1939) requiring all Jews to carry identification cards. On October 28, 17,000 Jews of Polish citizenship, many of whom had been living in Germany for decades, were arrested and relocated across the Polish border. The Polish government refused to admit them so they were interned in "relocation camps" on the Polish frontier.

Among the deportees was Zindel Grynszpan, who had been born in western Poland and had moved to Hanover, where he established a small store, in 1911. On the night of October 27, Zindel Grynszpan and his family were forced out of their home by German police. His store and the family's possessions were confiscated and they were forced to move over the Polish border.

Zindel Grynszpan's seventeen-year-old son, Herschel, was living with an uncle in Paris. When he received news of his family's expulsion, he went to the German embassy in Paris on November 7, intending to assassinate the German Ambassador to France. Upon discovering that the Ambassador was not in the embassy, he settled for a lesser official, Third Secretary Ernst vom Rath. Rath, was critically wounded and died two days later, on November 9.

The assassination provided Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Chief of Propaganda, with the excuse he needed to launch a pogrom against German Jews. Grynszpan's attack was interpreted by Goebbels as a conspiratorial attack by "International Jewry" against the Reich and, symbolically, against the Fuehrer himself. This pogrom has come to be called Kristallnacht, "the Night of Broken Glass."

Source: http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/kristallnacht.html

[Viking]

:yes:



It isn't pointed at anyone, it's meant as an invitation to contemplate the ultimate uselessness of recriminations without resolutions. You might really hate what was done in WWII and truly believe it was a hideous wrong, and yet it is not feasible to attempt a useful proof that it was not necessary without doing the impossible. We're at the point in the debate where one side says 'Yes' in a very loud voice, and the other one says 'No' in a very loud voice over and over again with no acceptable means of decision.



You deliberately misunderstand my point, human thought is rarely rational, correct, or clear during a war on either side. If it were rational the war itself almost certainly would never have happened. My point is the emotional, visceral experience of the fear of defeat, of the stench of your war dead clogging your nostrils, and the all too recent memory of bloody reversals in the field. We view WWII from a distance so great that it is reduced to numbers, so many tanks lost, so many gallons of fuel burned, and so many bullets fired. The men who made the decision to scorch Dresden personally knew dozens or hundreds of their fellows who had died to make victory possible, to break the German air power and allow the raid on Dresden, among others.

If they believed Dresden was necessary at that time then I believe it is absurd to question their decision on the basis of some imaginary 'objective' or 'rational' perspective concocted by people who have lived their lives in peace mourning only those dead of accident, disease, and age. Our whole generation has no experience of war on the scale that they did, no comparitive mass losses of life, and no basis for judging them across the decades of relative peace which have followed their accomplishments.

And you should note that I don't view Dresden as any more special or unique than Nanking, Nagasaki, or any of the other mass casualty events in the war.



It is the nature of a well developed society that in order for it to exist it must inherently deny it's priveleges to a multitude for every member which enjoys them. I do not believe that our current existence (Here I refer to 'Western' civilization, as much as it can be grouped together, as a whole) is any less destructive than was our conduct during WWII, though the lives are not cost by bullets and so more difficult to cleanly count. You seem to believe that society should be built on moral grounds and lifted high on principle alone, but I find that idea naive in the extreme.

I will say again that war has a morality all it's own, which cannot be reasonably compared to our peace time concepts of right and wrong. In war, as in any time when existence itself is threatened, necessity will count ahead of morality and the fact that the victors still exist to feel guilty is a undoubtable indication of the correctness of their actions with regard to necessity.

:egypt:


Very well, it appears that we have fundamentally different views when it comes to morality. Given that discussing just morality is not as straight forward as discussing the answer to a mathematical riddle, I don't think discussing this further is going to be too fruitful (as you hinted to).

Thank you for your replies. ~:cheers:

[CBR]

*closed for cleaning process*