Patton and War Crimes

[PanzerJaeger]

For SFTS & Frags, here is just a basic rundown of the events surrounding the Biscari Massacre. He was also involved in the Canicatti Massacre to a lesser extent:

During the battle for Sicily in 1943, American troops of 180th Regimental Combat Team of the 45th Division (Thunderbolt) fought German and Italian forces for control of the Biscari Airfield, which changed hands several times.

After the airfield finally came under Allied control conclusively, American soldiers murdered 76 of their prisoners in two separate incidents. 34 Italians and two Germans were shot to death in the first, and 40 more Italians were killed in the second.

When news of these events made it to Gen. Omar Bradley, he sought Patton's opinion. From Patton's journal:


I told Bradley that it was probably an exaggeration, but in any case to tell the officer to certify that the dead men were snipers or had attempted to escape or something, as it would make a stink in the press and also would make the civilians mad. Anyhow, they are dead, so nothing can be done about it.

Bradley refused to cover up the massacre, and demanded that someone be held accountable.

However, only two men were brought up on charges - despite the obvious duplicity of others in a crime of such magnitude.

More disturbing, however, was the defence both defendants mounted. They quoted a speech Patton gave to them earlier in the campaign, and claimed they were following orders:


When we land against the enemy, don't forget to hit him and hit him hard. When we meet the enemy we will kill him. We will show him no mercy. He has killed thousands of your comrades and he must die. If you company officers in leading your men against the enemy find him shooting at you and when you get within two hundred yards of him he wishes to surrender- oh no! That bastard will die! You will kill him. Stick him between the third and fourth ribs. You will tell your men that. They must have the killer instinct. Tell them to stick him. Stick him in the liver. We will get the name of killers and killers are immortal. When word reaches him that he is being faced by a killer battalion he will fight less. We must build up that name as killers.

Several more soldiers said they were willing to give evidence that Patton had told them to take no prisoners. One officer claimed that Patton had said:


The more prisoners we took, the more we'd have to feed, and not to fool with prisoners.

After the massacre it came out that Patton was said to have stated that the prisoners being shot in ordered rows was 'an even greater error.'

The defense was apparently successful. In order to protect Patton from the charge of war crimes, Bradley fast tracked the trials. For the first incident, the Army charged Sergeant Horace T. West. West admitted that he had participated in the shootings, was found guilty, stripped of rank and sentenced to life in prison. However, after serving just 6 months, he was released as a private.

For the second incident, the Army court martialed Captain John T. Compton for killing 40 POWs in his charge. He claimed to be following orders. The investigating officer and the Judge Advocate declared that Compton's actions were unlawful, but the court martial acquitted him. The Army transferred Compton to another regiment where he died a year later fighting in Italy.

Furthermore, the Army held neither Patton nor the unit commanding officer, Colonel E Cookson, to account in any way.



(Some summation via Wiki. Original sources: James Weingartner, `Massacre at Biscari: Patton and An American War Crime, The Historian LII, no. 1, (November 1989), 24-39.
Botting, Douglas & Sayer, Ian: Hitler's Last General: The case against Wilhelm Mohnke. Bantam Books, London, 1989, 354-9 )

[Fragony]

Very interesting, gracias. I always suspected Patton was more badass then Brad Pitt.

[Aemilius Paulus]

My only question is such: if you do not mind answering, which side were you rooting for?








That said, I would not have expected anything else from Patton. :shrug:

[Centurion1]

Patton was true peacock. He often said archaic concepts like that , the man thought he was a descendant of great generals of rome.

how do you not love a man like that sometimes. Striking his soldiers though is inexcusable.

i recommend the movie Patton, is really very well done.

[Strike For The South]

Hmmmm not a directly involved, still reprehensible.

I like Patton because he had a killer instinict that was bred into most European generals. This is the part that gets most overlooked in American canon. Patton could stand toe to toe with the best generals in Europe where as men like Bradley and Eisenhower simply lacked that go for the throat instinict.

Really the divergence came when many of Americas top military men fought for the south and were killed.

Its no surpirse that Patton is cut from the same cloth as Washington and Lee.

Thanks PJ

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I thought he was a more grind-em-down kinda guy like Grant.

[Azathoth]

See: Littleton Waller in the Phillippines. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littleton_W._T._Waller#Philippine-American_War_and_war_crimes_acquittal)


I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States.

[PanzerJaeger]

My only question is such: if you do not mind answering, which side were you rooting for?

I wasn't there. :beam:


how do you not love a man like that sometimes

The psychology behind this sentiment represents a very interesting aspect of victor's justice. Orders and attitudes that put Germans away for life make Patton "badass".

Sepp Dietrich, for example, was of similar rank to Patton, and he was every bit as "badass". His military exploits are legendary. He also had similar views towards POWs. They weren't to get in the way of success in the field. He got life, later reduced to 25 years.


I like Patton because he had a killer instinct that was bred into most European generals. This is the part that gets most overlooked in American canon. Patton could stand toe to toe with the best generals in Europe where as men like Bradley and Eisenhower simply lacked that go for the throat instinict.

I agree. Patton was great because he fought to win at all costs among a bunch of careerists and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, he hailed from the one nation that wasn't fighting for its survival. America could afford to fight a gentleman's war, where politics and public opinion shared equal standing with battlefield success. In any other circumstances, in any other army, the slapping incident, for example, would not have sidelined his career. He would have made a brilliant Russian Marshal.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Shameful acts. Crimes in their own right. Not unique either, not unique to Patton.

In fact, there are so many allied war crimes, that if one adds up all their sordid acts, they left as many victims as the nazis took almost a week!


Unfortunately, he hailed from the one nation that wasn't fighting for its survival. Oh, but that's not true. Germany and its many allies could've decided to just stay at home.
You're reading history backwards this way - Germany ended up fighting to cling on for dear life, but this can not be read backwards to absolve it. The nazis didn't start the war for survival. It was one of conquest and subjugation.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

You make it sound like everyone should've been shooting POWs, Panzer.

[PanzerJaeger]

In fact, there are so many allied war crimes, that if one adds up all their sordid acts, they left as many victims as the nazis took almost a week!

Be careful what you wish for. I have heard there are a number of historians working on just such an equation.


Oh, but that's not true. Germany and its many allies could've decided to just stay at home.
You're reading history backwards this way - Germany ended up fighting to cling on for dear life, but this can not be read backwards to absolve it. The nazis didn't start the war for survival. It was one of conquest and subjugation.

I was talking mainly about Russia. Patton was more in line with Zhukov and Yeryomenko than his American and British contemporaries.


You make it sound like everyone should've been shooting POWs, Panzer.

That was not my intent. I only meant to demonstrate that such attitudes were not unique to any one military during WW2. Obviously, it should not be done.

[Strike For The South]

I agree. Patton was great because he fought to win at all costs among a bunch of careerists and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, he hailed from the one nation that wasn't fighting for its survival. America could afford to fight a gentleman's war, where politics and public opinion shared equal standing with battlefield success. In any other circumstances, in any other army, the slapping incident, for example, would not have sidelined his career. He would have made a brilliant Russian Marshal.

It's truly a pity many of Americas best military minds lay in Confederate graves. Victims of there own geopgraphy :shame:

[The Wizard]

Be careful what you wish for. I have heard there are a number of historians working on just such an equation.

Louis was obviously sarcastically asserting that even if you added all Allied war crimes up, you'd still get something equal to what the Nazis achieved in a week. Boy oh boy, those evil Allies.

[Sarmatian]

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.

[Centurion1]

The psychology behind this sentiment represents a very interesting aspect of victor's justice. Orders and attitudes that put Germans away for life make Patton "badass".

Sepp Dietrich, for example, was of similar rank to Patton, and he was every bit as "badass". His military exploits are legendary. He also had similar views towards POWs. They weren't to get in the way of success in the field. He got life, later reduced to 25 years.

one of my favorite generals was erwin rommel. i am still impressed with military prowess over politics in many cases


It's truly a pity many of Americas best military minds lay in Confederate graves. Victims of there own geopgraphy

Thats debatable. I agree that the southern generals were superior and the south has a fighting tradition (texas for example makes up 17% of americas armed forces) but there were excellent go for the throat generals in the North. a prime example would be Tecumseh Sherman.

and by the time of WW2 it no longer mattered. That generation was dead and gone and they would have had very little if any impact on the officers of america. There lessons lived on in military theory.

And George Washington was not a go for the throat general he was cool and calculating and waged a pseudo guerrilla defensive war.

Lee is of course a superb general but he also lost something with the death of his XO Jackson.

[Azathoth]

Once again, no one gives a care for the fate of the Philippines. :laugh4:

[Sarmatian]

one of my favorite generals was erwin rommel. i am still impressed with military prowess over politics in many cases


I don't really understand this Rommel obssesion. I admit Africa isn't my specialty, but from what I know, there wasn't anything so special about him. There are literally dozens of German generals I would give more credit to than to him.

[Husar]

Louis was obviously sarcastically asserting that even if you added all Allied war crimes up, you'd still get something equal to what the Nazis achieved in a week. Boy oh boy, those evil Allies.

Quite ineffective and slow they were. But yeah, we killed a lot in a week so they must have killed a lot, too.

[PanzerJaeger]

Louis was obviously sarcastically asserting that even if you added all Allied war crimes up, you'd still get something equal to what the Nazis achieved in a week. Boy oh boy, those evil Allies.

I'm well aware of what he was saying. Do you understand what I was saying?

It is easy to make such a claim, but as more historians run the numbers, it will be hard to justify it.



I don't really understand this Rommel obssesion. I admit Africa isn't my specialty, but from what I know, there wasn't anything so special about him. There are literally dozens of German generals I would give more credit to than to him.

Of course, but people in the West naturally focus on their own contribution... makes 'em feel important. :beam:

[Centurion1]

I don't really understand this Rommel obssesion. I admit Africa isn't my specialty, but from what I know, there wasn't anything so special about him. There are literally dozens of German generals I would give more credit to than to him.

im talking ww2 generals in germany. i liked him persoanlly in his private life as well.

but whats impressive is how well he managed against both Patton and Montgomery as foes and with the italians to back him up (lol)

but no he isnt my favorite generals just my favorite of the ww2 germans.


Once again, no one gives a care for the fate of the Philippines.

who macarthur? he was ok but i dislike him. mentally unstable in my eyes.

[Sarmatian]

im talking ww2 generals in germany. i liked him persoanlly in his private life as well.

but whats impressive is how well he managed against both Patton and Montgomery as foes and with the italians to back him up (lol)

but no he isnt my favorite generals just my favorite of the ww2 germans.


Bah, I don't know... He showed some promise in France but then was relegated to Africa. He might have turned out great but he we'll never know. Also, his idea about putting tanks on the beaches, in range of heavy guns from the allied ships, during overlord makes you wonder about his military capabilities.

I feel it's more propaganda. Allies needed an explanation for the failures so they built up Rommel and DAK. "Ok we did perform poorly, but we were against the best of Wehrmacht fighting under best commander Wehrmacht has to offer" type of thing...

And neither Monty nor Patton deserve that much recognition in my book. Patton did show some glimpses of quality but he never had the opportunity to prove his skill in a large scale operation, so he's just an interesting "what if" for me, and the less said about Monty the better.

On the other hand, Patton is definitely the most interesting character among the Allied generals.

[Centurion1]

On the other hand, Patton is definitely the most interesting character among the Allied generals.

oh yes hes one of those men, a peacock that you either love or hate. much like andrew jackson

[Centurion1]

On the other hand, Patton is definitely the most interesting character among the Allied generals.

oh yes hes one of those men, a peacock that you either love or hate. much like andrew jackson

[Subotan]

Louis was obviously sarcastically asserting that even if you added all Allied war crimes up, you'd still get something equal to what the Nazis achieved in a week. Boy oh boy, those evil Allies.
At least until you add Chiang Kai-Shek and Stalin...

[Centurion1]

At least until you add Chiang Kai-Shek and Stalin...

So painfully true.

[The Wizard]

Erm, no. Adding in those two would maybe crank the Allied war crime tally up to, oh, something the Nazis and the Japanese did every six months or so. Maybe a year if you're lucky.


I'm well aware of what he was saying. Do you understand what I was saying?

It is easy to make such a claim, but as more historians run the numbers, it will be hard to justify it.

Trying to morally equate the Allies with the Axis is a lost case from the beginning. Give it up.

[Centurion1]

Trying to morally equate the Allies with the Axis is a lost case from the beginning. Give it up.

Truth.


and the Japs did every six months or so. Maybe a year if you're lucky.

You should try to avoid saying jap, many people find it offensive.

Edit: actually im sure you know, never mind.

Edit2: patton is on tv right now where i live.

[Azathoth]

who macarthur? he was ok but i dislike him. mentally unstable in my eyes.

I was referring to the atrocities committed by America in its war in the Philippines.

[Centurion1]

I was referring to the atrocities committed by America in its war in the Philippines.

:shrug:

what about the rape of china or the bataan death march, the japanese were nasty little buggers no doubt about it.

[Azathoth]

The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog....

Not America's finest moment.

[Centurion1]

Not America's finest moment.

the pacific was a bloody no holds barred war that was second pony behind the european theater. most people don't know how terrible the war was for both navy men and the marines who had to take those tiny islands.

all in all america's fighting men performed far more humanely than the japanese.

[Azathoth]

But I'm not talking about WW2!

[Centurion1]

But I'm not talking about WW2!

your talking about before? thats irrelevant to this thread topic. ill just trot out an example fo some other agression before the war for japan.

[Azathoth]

your talking about before? thats irrelevant to this thread topic. ill just trot out an example fo some other agression before the war for japan.

I'm not comparing American and Japanese war crimes. I was originally making a point about the similarity between General Patton's and General Smith's "orders" in WW2 and the Philippine-American War, respectively. We seem to have gotten off track there.

[Strike For The South]

Aza your fighting a losing battle.

The American occupation of the philipines at the turn of the century isn't even taught in schools

[Centurion1]

yes mostly due to misunderstanding each other. yes there is definitely a similarity with a key difference. smith was fighting an insurrection and patton was fighting a war technically by the geneva convention.

i would probably look sideways at all the flips in that situation too if they were shooting me from th bushes one day and then selling me a soda the next.

doesnt excuse the killings of course, just explains the paranoia better.

[Strike For The South]

yes mostly due to misunderstanding each other. yes there is definitely a similarity with a key difference. smith was fighting an insurrection and patton was fighting a war technically by the geneva convention.

i would probably look sideways at all the flips in that situation too if they were shooting me from th bushes one day and then selling me a soda the next.

doesnt excuse the killings of course, just explains the paranoia better.

So an inseruction isnt guided by Geneva?

That should make Iraq and Afghanistan allot eaiser then...

[Centurion1]

So an inseruction isnt guided by Geneva?

That should make Iraq and Afghanistan allot eaiser then...

no i believe it is, wha ti am saying is that you are going to be much more suspicious of the natives when your fighting a rebellion rather than liberating a country.

[Azathoth]

There's certainly some interesting parallels between that war and the Vietnam War.


Guerrilla War in Southeast Asia
Americans + Collaborators vs Revolutionaries
America Asked by Revolutionaries For Aid Against Colonial Oppressors (Spanish)
Previous War of Independence Against Said Oppressors
Similar War Crimes on Both Sides (killing of civilians by Americans, collaborators by Filipinos, the old "bury-them-neck-deep-in-dirt-and-leave-them-for-the-ants" trick)
Exposure of Brutality of War by American Media
Anti-war Activism by Well-Known Figures/"Celebrities"
Ridiculously High Native Casualties (Philippines - up to 1.2 million (~15%), Vietnam - up to 5 million (~12%)


I guess America technically beat the Filipinos, but they had to give up the islands 30 years later.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

yes mostly due to misunderstanding each other. yes there is definitely a similarity with a key difference. smith was fighting an insurrection and patton was fighting a war technically by the geneva convention.

i would probably look sideways at all the flips in that situation too if they were shooting me from th bushes one day and then selling me a soda the next.

doesnt excuse the killings of course, just explains the paranoia better.

"Flips"?

[Azathoth]

Pejorative for "Felipe's"?

[A Very Super Market]

George Washington was fighting an insurrection. Freedom is relative.

[Snite]

The American and British obsession with Rommel doesn't come from trying to cover up our inadequecies, but from the fact that the dude consistently kicked our butts. The US and UK really didn't have so many set back and outright defeats handed to them by anyone other than Rommel, so the acheivments of other German generals - say Mannstein - go overlooked because Mannstein never had the opportunity to beat the tar out of us. So it stems mainly from ignorance.

[Centurion1]

"Flips"?

have you guys ever met filipinos. as a navy brat they sort of follow around the bases like a little entourage doing all the tasks neede dto keep it running, marrying sailors (i have alot of half asian friends) etc.

They go by filipino or flip for short for all the ones i meet. it isnt insulting or anything. its just shorting the word.

[al Roumi]

It's truly a pity many of Americas best military minds lay in Confederate graves. Victims of there own geopgraphy :shame:

Geography? Is that what the US civil war was all about?

[al Roumi]

no i believe it is, wha ti am saying is that you are going to be much more suspicious of the natives when your fighting a rebellion rather than liberating a country.

Fighting a rebelion, liberating a country. Are you sure about both those mission objectives?

The US annexed the Philipines and installed more US friendly governments in Iraq and Afghanistan - which some might go as far as to term "proxies".

[Subedei]

I am currently reading an essay on Patton. Well, he was a strange guy to say the least: loved by (most of) his men, in a constant competition for fame with Montgommery and a daredevilish general.

On the other hand: He despised jews, blacks & homosexuals.

He sort of admired the SS in a strange way. When the war was won, the Western politicians realized that there was a big threat coming from the Soviet Union.. General Patton was dreaming of rearming a couple of Waffen SS divisions to incorporate them into his US Third Army "and lead them against the Reds". Patton had put this plan quite seriously to General Joseph T. McNarney, deputy US military governor in Germany.

In Bad Tölz the 17. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division surrendered to him and saluted him with "S*** Heil!". He was very impressed not to say overwhelmed.


#Considering the above I would not be surprised in case he protected war criminals.

[Centurion1]

Fighting a rebelion, liberating a country. Are you sure about both those mission objectives?

The US annexed the Philipines and installed more US friendly governments in Iraq and Afghanistan - which some might go as far as to term "proxies".

lol i was talking about ww2 and the Philippines. jumping to conclusions, neh?


Geography? Is that what the US civil war was all about?

It was for Lee and Jackson the two best confederate generals and amny other southern officers. Lee didnt even like slavery....... which makes the civil war all the bitter. The southerners doing the actual fighting were all the poor white boys fighting for an ideal they would probably never reach and never be accepted, that of planter status. The planters sat at home (with notable exceptions of course)" keeping down" slave insurrections

[A Very Super Market]

Geography? Is that what the US civil war was all about?

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.

[Brenus]

So Lee fighting to keep Slavery was a none racist when Lincoln, racist, abolish slavery…
Give me more of the second who went against his prejudices and less of the first fighting to keep injustice on the name of what: Caste privileges.
For sure, abolition was not the goal of the war, but Union. But it was still Lincoln who abolish slaver after Antietam (?), preventing a general revolt in the plantation as the slaves knew freedom would come, it was no need to raise up…
This probably saved USA from another big problem…

[al Roumi]

It was [all about geography] for Lee and Jackson the two best confederate generals and amny other southern officers. Lee didnt even like slavery....... which makes the civil war all the bitter. The southerners doing the actual fighting were all the poor white boys fighting for an ideal they would probably never reach and never be accepted, that of planter status. The planters sat at home (with notable exceptions of course)" keeping down" slave insurrections


Quite [all about geography], 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.

Right, that is no different to almost any other war -people fighting for their own interests and those of the people close to them. To call it "geography" is apologistic, presenting the motivation as a regretable accident of fate rather than a timeless truism that Humans are selfish and self motivated. Did Lee not go to West Point? Did he not swear fealty to the Republic as all West-pointers did?

I agree with Brenus regarding who should receive more plaudits: the one pushing progress and the alleviation of suffering (although its not like there was ever speedy or swift progress for Blacks...). Even 'Mr Humanist par excellence' Thomas Jefferson, despite abhoring the concept of slavery, continued to own slaves on his plantation!

[The Lurker Below]

So Lee fighting to keep Slavery was a none racist when Lincoln, racist, abolish slavery…
Give me more of the second who went against his prejudices and less of the first fighting to keep injustice on the name of what: Caste privileges.
For sure, abolition was not the goal of the war, but Union. But it was still Lincoln who abolish slaver after Antietam (?), preventing a general revolt in the plantation as the slaves knew freedom would come, it was no need to raise up…
This probably saved USA from another big problem…

Contrary sir, Lincoln freed no slaves. He emancipated slaves in lands over which he had no control. The slaves he had control over, he did not emancipate. In a way we could say that Lincoln was a terrorist. His purpose for emancipation was not to "prevent a general revolt in the plantation," rather he was hoping this step would incite slave revolts and make the war easier for the North to win.

Slavery in the U.S. is a topic we should avoid placing blame on as all were culpable. The first abolitionist society counted B. Franklin and Dr B. Rush as founding members, both owned slaves prior to that. John Adams father-in-law, a Massachuesettes preacher, home of the abolitionist Yankees - slaveholder. Who made fortunes importing slaves? Those same Yankees.

Lee? Father was govenor of Virginia. Uncle proposed independence for the colonies, that Lee? He never owned slaves. He probably believed in the states right to secede just as much as the people in the Hartford Convention, yet when his state legislature asked his opinion he advised them not to. Look up those Hartford Convention guys. Simply put it's best not to try and put any Americans on the morale high ground when it comes to slavery, they were all stained.

[Centurion1]

Contrary sir, Lincoln freed no slaves. He emancipated slaves in lands over which he had no control. The slaves he had control over, he did not emancipate. In a way we could say that Lincoln was a terrorist. His purpose for emancipation was not to "prevent a general revolt in the plantation," rather he was hoping this step would incite slave revolts and make the war easier for the North to win.

Slavery in the U.S. is a topic we should avoid placing blame on as all were culpable. The first abolitionist society counted B. Franklin and Dr B. Rush as founding members, both owned slaves prior to that. John Adams father-in-law, a Massachuesettes preacher, home of the abolitionist Yankees - slaveholder. Who made fortunes importing slaves? Those same Yankees.

Lee? Father was govenor of Virginia. Uncle proposed independence for the colonies, that Lee? He never owned slaves. He probably believed in the states right to secede just as much as the people in the Hartford Convention, yet when his state legislature asked his opinion he advised them not to. Look up those Hartford Convention guys. Simply put it's best not to try and put any Americans on the morale high ground when it comes to slavery, they were all stained.

George Washington, Monroe, Madison, Jackson....... the list goes on and on and on. Its best to look beyond slavery when judging early presidents otherwise most of our founding fathers, if not all, would be evil. My point is that for many of the south's soldiers who were superior fighters better led it was a matter of geography. The issue of slavery was just the spark that blew up the Union. It is not the dominating reasont he war occured. what happened was the south was afraid of being outvoted on EVERYTHING but especially slavery after being so dominant in politics for so long.

[Brenus]

Ah. Again.
Lee and Lincoln and the thin separation between men, the moving fence between good and evil, we can be all nazi depending circumstances etc.
Was Lincoln a successful Milosevic?

Lincoln never owned slaves. One said he was racist. Perhaps. But the result of his political life was to free the slaves. It was not the goal, but the result.
You can say want you want. In declaring that all slaves will be free, he set-up the term for the Confederation for peace… Not return to post war situation.
Lee was perhaps a good man, but he fought for a bad cause. Did the South have the right to secession? I don’t know, but in starting the war it stop all others options for negotiation.
So whatever Lee was thinking about slavery he fought to keep it.

One frees the slaves.
One fights to keep them in chains…

My choice is clear…

[PanzerJaeger]

all in all america's fighting men performed far more humanely than the japanese.

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.

[Subedei]

Ain´t Patton and war crimes the topic here? I was really interested in the opinions about him.

[Strike For The South]

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.

https://img684.imageshack.us/img684/3391/orlmente.jpg (https://img684.imageshack.us/i/orlmente.jpg/)

I know an 87 year old man whom disagrees with you, Hans

[PanzerJaeger]

I know an 87 year old man whom disagrees with you, Hans

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

[Sarmatian]

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...

[Centurion1]

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.

Are you attempting to take a **** on my family history. And even if they did shoot prisoners that is NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING like physically raping thousands of women and killing thousands more civilians. And how about Japanese POW camps, real human those places.

You are agruing a totally bogus point by trying to match a cucumber with a zucchini.

[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. (http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/01/world/3-dead-marines-and-a-secret-of-wartime-okinawa.html?scp) 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. :book:


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. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolyma#The_Arctic_Death_Camps)

[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.

https://img294.imageshack.us/img294/5841/worldwariideathsbyallia.png

[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. :laugh4:

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. :laugh4:

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 :daisy: 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? :dizzy2:

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? :dizzy2:

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? :dizzy2:

Get real, PJ. Your entire argument rests on thin air, namely the complete flaming :daisy: 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! :idea2: 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 :daisy: 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? :dizzy2:

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? :dizzy2:

Get real, PJ. Your entire argument rests on thin air, namely the complete flaming :daisy: 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! :idea2: 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 :daisy: 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? :dizzy2:

[PanzerJaeger]

double post

[Centurion1]

double post mate.

[PanzerJaeger]

double post mate.

:bow:

[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. :yes:

[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. :yes:

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-Japanese_sentiment#During_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_war_crimes_during_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/Japanese_prisoners_of_war_in_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/American_mutilation_of_Japanese_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. :bow:

[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] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-NYU-63)

Death rates of POWs held by Axis powers



Chinese POWs held by Japan: > 99%[citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)] (only 56 survivors at the end of the war)[65] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-64)
U.S. and British Commonwealth POWs held by Germany: ~4% [64] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-NYU-63)
Soviet POWs held by Germany: 57.5% [66] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Ferguson-65)
Western Allied (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Allies) POWs held by Japan: 27% [67] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-66)

Death rates of POWs held by the Allies



German POWs in East European (not including the Soviet Union) hands 32.9%[66] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Ferguson-65)
German soldiers held by Soviet Union: 15-33% (14.7% in The Dictators by Richard Overy, 35.8% in Ferguson[66] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Ferguson-65))
Japanese POWs held by Soviet Union: 10%
German POWs in British hands 0.03%[66] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Ferguson-65)
German POWs in American hands 0.15%[66] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Ferguson-65)
German POWs in French hands 2.58%[66] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Ferguson-65)
Japanese POWs held by U.S.: relatively low, mainly suicides according to James D. Morrow[68] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-NYU-22-67) or according to Ulrich Straus high as many prisoners were shot by front line troops.[44] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#cite_note-Ulrich-Straus-116-43)
Japanese POWs in Chinese hands. 24%


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_war_crimes_during_World_War_II#The_PacificThe 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.

[drone]

I don't doubt that the US servicemen took some liberties in the Pacific. Much if this was due to the actions of the Japanese themselves (Pearl, Bataan, Nanking, etc.), which fed the US propaganda machine, and the IJA's Senginkun code which made taking prisoners a dicey prospect at best. The Japanese also lied about following the Geneva conventions on POWs (even though they did not ratify the treaty, they still said they would abide by it). All in all, a vicious fight, fought by different cultures, with less attention in theater than the fight in Europe.

The problem with Panzer's argument is both the scale factor, and the victims. The Axis is responsible for many more atrocities, and these were largely targeted against civilians. The atrocities of the Allies were largely targeted against the enemy combatants.

[Pannonian]

I don't doubt that the US servicemen took some liberties in the Pacific. Much if this was due to the actions of the Japanese themselves (Pearl, Bataan, Nanking, etc.), which fed the US propaganda machine, and the IJA's Senginkun code which made taking prisoners a dicey prospect at best. The Japanese also lied about following the Geneva conventions on POWs (even though they did not ratify the treaty, they still said they would abide by it). All in all, a vicious fight, fought by different cultures, with less attention in theater than the fight in Europe.

The problem with Panzer's argument is both the scale factor, and the victims. The Axis is responsible for many more atrocities, and these were largely targeted against civilians. The atrocities of the Allies were largely targeted against the enemy combatants.

Read descriptions of the London Cage. The read descriptions of Mengele's and Unit 731's activities. Then find somewhere to vomit. Read PJ's comparison of the London Cage with those Axis butchers. Then vomit again. The greatest Allied atrocity of WW2 was the decision not to prosecute Shiro Ishii.

[drone]

Read descriptions of the London Cage. The read descriptions of Mengele's and Unit 731's activities. Then find somewhere to vomit. Read PJ's comparison of the London Cage with those Axis butchers. Then vomit again. The greatest Allied atrocity of WW2 was the decision not to prosecute Shiro Ishii.

I'm quite aware of how ridiculous that claim was. We did worse at Abu Ghraib.

This thread is about Allied war crimes. Did some Allied soldiers torture or shoot prisoners? I don't think that can be denied. But PJ seems to be playing loose and fast with the numbers in an attempt to... what? He hasn't really come up with solid numbers for his claims, the wiki quotes are anecdotal at best. The important questions are: how prevalent were these crimes, and to what extent were they accepted within the chain of command? Comparisons to Axis crimes are meaningless, because there is no comparison.

[Pannonian]

I'm quite aware of how ridiculous that claim was. We did worse at Abu Ghraib.

This thread is about Allied war crimes. Did some Allied soldiers torture or shoot prisoners? I don't think that can be denied. But PJ seems to be playing loose and fast with the numbers in an attempt to... what? He hasn't really come up with solid numbers for his claims, the wiki quotes are anecdotal at best. The important questions are: how prevalent were these crimes, and to what extent were they accepted within the chain of command? Comparisons to Axis crimes are meaningless, because there is no comparison.

This thread struck a nerve because at TWC there was a thread showing North Korean propaganda pictures of US soldiers bayoneting helpless Korean civilians. That made me think of accounts of US soldiers pleading with Japanese civilians not to jump off cliffs, children in their arms. On the ground at least, the western Allies were probably the most humane army of that size ever to have existed, and by extension, the Americans the most humane hegemon there has ever been. The isolated cases are absolutely nothing in the wider context of history. The subject may be of academic interest, but when it's used to whitewash the activities of the Axis in comparison, it offends me.

[PanzerJaeger]

. But PJ seems to be playing loose and fast with the numbers

I resent this, far more than the juvenile accusations of Nazi apologism and other hostility expressed toward me in this thread. I understand that it is easier to malign my intentions than accept reality; however, I do present factual information.

You were correct in your earlier post to remind me that the burden of proof, as it was, rested with me. I assumed that this information was common knowledge. It has been widely discussed on the WW2 forums I frequent and I have read about it often in books and articles on the subject. Tom Hanks has even been discussing it in relation to his new mini series on HBO. However, the information has apparently not filtered down to those who do not study the war.

I posted several well-sourced wiki entries as well as hard copy sources all highlighting the fact that there was widespread refusal to take prisoners, killing of those who did manage to surrender, and mutilization of Japanese soldiers. I can post plenty more if you'd like. The US military's own correspondence explicitly acknowledges the widespread nature of these practices, as do the films shown to soldiers imploring them not to kill surrendering Japanese. You want hard numbers? How about the fact that there were only 604 Japanese POWs in Allied hands in October of 1944. What about these historian's research do you dispute? How am I distorting it?

Now, if you and Pan want to bury your heads in the sand and talk of "isolated incidents" and how humane the US military was in the Pacific, that is your prerogative; but please don't act as though historical consensus favors that position. I've done all I can do.

[Louis VI the Fat]

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

-French killed during Allied air raids

I hold the Nazis responsible for all of these.

When the nazis hide in a French city to prevent any allied bombing of their position, I place full blame on the nazis. Allied mistakes that were made are the ultimate responsibility of Berlin too. One can argue about the wisdom of bombing mediaeval Caen...
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Charnwood
http://passouline.blog.lemonde.fr/2009/05/25/le-bombardement-de-caen-un-crime-de-guerre/)

...but at the end of the argument, the Nazis had no business being there in the first place. The allies, French and otherwise, had a moral greenlight to kick them out. This greenlight sits somewhere between the equally preposterous 'destroying and killing the whole of France', and 'enormous allied casualties to save a two French roosters and a wooden shack'. At the final balance, I think the allies did alright, really.


As for famine and disease in unoccupied zones of French territories, I place full blame on the Axis powers too.

[PanzerJaeger]

I hold the Nazis responsible for all of these.

You're missing the point. He posted that graphic to illustrate how many more civilians the Axis countries directly killed than the Allies. However, the chart is full of Allied (and presumably Axis) civilian deaths that were not intentionally inflicted by their respective enemies. If he had said, "the Axis and Russians started the war, and are thus ostensibly responsible for all civilian deaths that occured during the war" there would not be an issue. However, he was taking a more nuanced position that the graph did not represent.

[drone]

Now, if you and Pan want to bury your heads in the sand and talk of "isolated incidents" and how humane the US military was in the Pacific, that is your prerogative; but please don't act as though historical consensus favors that position. I've done all I can do.

I'm not burying my head in the sand, I would like to know the truth. Those wiki articles have lots of examples of war crimes and trophy hunting, but they are light on the detail of how widespread the acts were. I'm not doubting that they happened, I'm just not clear of the extent. And I'm fairly certain they pale in comparison to the actions of the IJA.

Regarding the lack of Japanese POWs, like I said before, the fault lies on both sides. The reputation and the IJA's official code of military conduct meant the Allied forces would have to treat "surrendering" combatants with extreme caution. The Japanese themselves did not care about their own troops that surrendered. What percentage of potential POWs were killed as a result of Senjinkun, and what percentage were just killed out of hand by Allied troops? Unfortunately, it's unlikely we will ever know the answer to this.

[Sarmatian]

You're missing the point. He posted that graphic to illustrate how many more civilians the Axis countries directly killed than the Allies. However, the chart is full of Allied (and presumably Axis) civilian deaths that were not intentionally inflicted by their respective enemies.

No, you missed the point. The graph says WW2 casualties not civilians directly killed. Now, I posted it to give an impression of a huge disrepancy between Allied and Axis civlian casualties. I'm fully aware that graph isn't 100% accurate but even with taking everything you said into account, it doesn't change the ratio that much, therefore it was accurate enough for the point I was trying to make.

Also, you said 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. and American soldiers were just as bad as the Japanese.

That's two major axis and two major allies and you're saying that Soviets were just as bad, or even worse than the nazis and that Americans were just as bad, or even worse, than the Japanese. It doesn't take a huge leap of faith to see that this is basically saying Allies were just as bad, or even worse than the Axis - which is what I'm arguing. I'm not arguing that Americans, Soviets... didn't commit crimes, there is substantial proof that they did, I'm not disputing that, it's just that figures don't add up if you say they were just as bad as the Germans or Japanese.

So, if you want to discuss Allied crimes, as far as I'm concerned, go for it. I'd like to read more about it, but when you put "=" between Allies and Axis, we're gonna have a problem.

[Lemur]

Not true. The Marines [...] put even the Rape of Nanking to shame in the way they conducted the war.
You post unsupported tripe like this, and you wonder why this thread is an explosion of hostility toward your position? Good lord, man. It's one thing to point out that some Marines committed war crimes, it's quite another to equate their behavior with that of the Japanese Empire.

Out of curiosity, based on your history of posting, why is equating the behavior of Axis and Allied soldiers such a consistent PJ theme? Did you have a great-grandfather in the Wehrmacht or something? The way this keeps coming up, it seems as though there's some sort of personal motive.

[PanzerJaeger]

No, you missed the point. The graph says WW2 casualties not civilians directly killed. Now, I posted it to give an impression of a huge disrepancy between Allied and Axis civlian casualties. I'm fully aware that graph isn't 100% accurate but even with taking everything you said into account, it doesn't change the ratio that much, therefore it was accurate enough for the point I was trying to make.

And 2+2=5.... or close enough. I'm sorry, that's just sloppy, misleading, and over-inflates your point.


That's two major axis and two major allies and you're saying that Soviets were just as bad, or even worse than the nazis and that Americans were just as bad, or even worse, than the Japanese. It doesn't take a huge leap of faith to see that this is basically saying Allies were just as bad, or even worse than the Axis - which is what I'm arguing. I'm not arguing that Americans, Soviets... didn't commit crimes, there is substantial proof that they did, I'm not disputing that, it's just that figures don't add up if you say they were just as bad as the Germans or Japanese.

This, I think, strikes at the heart of the disagreement. You and the others are taking solace in the fact that the Allies killed less than the Axis. As I've said and re-quoted over and over, I don't disagree. I just don't quantify morality through body counts. Is a man who kills 5 people worse than one who kills 3? Does the fact that Stalin's final body count is some x millions more than Hitler's make him a slightly worse person? Does your equation mean that Mao was the worst person in the world? Certainly the outcome is worse, but does it really take slightly more moral depravity to kill x than y. I think not. Once that line is crossed, once you begin to see people as disposable, body counts are just a function of the amount of power a person wields and how long they are allowed to continue killing.

I judge morality, who was "worse" if you will, based on the depths that the government and people are willing to sink to. It is obvious that the Russians, like the Nazis, had no problem with launching wars of aggression, ethnic cleansing, and internal repression. The Western Allies were certainly different from the Nazis and the Soviets, but it is also clear that they engaged in the same kind of dehumanization and illegal war practices that the Nazis did in the East, as much as some here want to put their fingers in their ears and hum the Star Spangled Banner. I guess it's just a subjective measurement.


You post unsupported tripe like this, and you wonder why this thread is an explosion of hostility toward your position? Good lord, man. It's one thing to point out that some Marines committed war crimes, it's quite another to equate their behavior with that of the Japanese Empire.

Unsupported tripe? I feel like I've stumbled on to StormFront or something. "They changed the Auschwitz sign from saying 4 million were killed to 1 million, therefore if they can overestimate the numbers by 3 million then they don't really know, therefore it didn't happen!!1" The denial is thick. Have you read anything, anything at all, on the subject? Have you read the US military's own correspondence on the issue?

[Brenus]

“You and Brenus seem to know more about my intentions than I do.”
I just read your posts. You are always trying to equal Allies war crimes with Nazi Genocide.
I do not know you intention and in fact I do appreciate your post in term of History.
However, one fundamental in History is to analyze texts in the context and to question who wrote what, to whom and for which purpose.
Your apparent will to equal Nazism with Communism lead me to conclude it is a political issue.
You are not alone in this trend as Poland just passed a motion stating this.

“I just don't quantify morality through body counts. Is a man who kills 5 people worse than one who kills 3?” Nor I do. So to built Extermination camps in order to kill human being just in denying them humanity is worst than to created harsh work camps.
The ideology qualifies for the morality. Japanese and Nazi Germany were based on racism.
The others criminals as Stalin and Mao killed who challenged or were perceived as a potential dangers without race discrimination and that is why they are dictators.
It is said that Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler, due to the length of time of his dictatorship…

You were not without noticing that for the Gulag and Kolyma link, no figures are really given for 1932 to 1954.
The fact that there were still prisoners to grant an amnesty is something that couldn’t happened in Sobibor or Treblinka…
From your source: “The Kolyma authority, which was reorganised in 1958/59 (31 December 1958), finally closed in 1968. However the mining activities did not stop. Indeed, government structures still exist today under the Ministry of Natural Resources. In some cases, the same individuals seem to have stayed on over the years under new management.”
Hardly imaginable in Auschwitz/Birkenau isn’t it?

“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.”
I do agree that the US war propaganda was a bit racist against the Japanese. However, if you just consider how the Japanese treated the Asian Countries they “liberated” (2.000.000 dead just for Vietnam thanks to the razzia on rice) and how the US treated Japan…
Some US soldiers commited war crimes and did collect bones, and gold teeth etc. Now it was not a governmental request/duties as in Nazi Germany Camps.
Some did try to save the women jumping with their babies as well.
Some risk their lives to save injured Japanese even if the risk of a grenade explosion was not to underestimate…
This can’t be said for the Japanese side.

Just read about what happened to the French garrisons of Langson or Dong Dang..

[Lemur]

Unsupported tripe?
Indeed.


I feel like I've stumbled on to StormFront or something.
The difference being that white supremacists, much like truthers, birthers and tinfoil-hat wearers of all stripes, stake out a position that is contrary to consensual history. So they have rather a lot more to prove. Analogy: If I assert that gravity exists, there is no overwhelming obligation for me to prove this assertion, as it is in line with just about every respectable physicist. If I assert that gravity does not exist, I have my work cut out for me.

You are the one staking out a minority viewpoint, i.e., that the behavior of the United States Marines was somehow equivalent to the worst excesses of the Japanese Empire. When you make that assertion, you have a lot of work to do, and those telling you to your face that your ideas are nuttier than a granola bar are not out of line.

And even though your motives are entirely salient, you skitter away from addressing them. Again, why is this dubious point so important to you?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I judge morality, who was "worse" if you will, based on the depths that the government and people are willing to sink to. It is obvious that the Russians, like the Nazis, had no problem with launching wars of aggression, ethnic cleansing, and internal repression. The Western Allies were certainly different from the Nazis and the Soviets, but it is also clear that they engaged in the same kind of dehumanization and illegal war practices that the Nazis did in the East, as much as some here want to put their fingers in their ears and hum the Star Spangled Banner. I guess it's just a subjective measurement.

I'm sympathetic to this view right up to the part about Germany on the Eastern front. The Germans were conducting a race war, a war of extermination - not just for the Jews, but to get the inferior Slavs out of the picture. It was far more systematic and intentional than simply shooting POWs because they're Asian. The goal of the war in the Pacific wasn't to clear out all the locals, and I don't think you've shown that the American high command issued orders that POWs should be shot. American massacres of POWs are obviously horrible and possibly (maybe even probably) racially oriented, but they were standard operating practices (or at least not as you've demonstrated).

If you want to make the case that the US was fighting a war of extermination in the Pacific, and you come up with evidence to back that up then maybe you could call the sides somewhat equivalent. But I don't see that from what you've posted.

[Kagemusha]

I think in this PJ your position is untenable. Crimes happen in wars, but there is no proof of systematic murder some axis countries involved themselves from Western Allied. Soviets are another story. Hell even Finland was involved in deaths of Soviet civilians, since great many of them that had been put in refugee camps, plus prison camps died in starvation during winters of 1941-2 simply because of failed harvest Finland couldnt even feed her own population and was reliant on German shipping of foodstuff. War is full of crimes and tragedies. But the systematic slaughter Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan engaged was one of a kind.

[Centurion1]

“I just don't quantify morality through body counts. Is a man who kills 5 people worse than one who kills 3?”

I do. reasons FOR killing people can make all the difference

[PanzerJaeger]

I just read your posts. You are always trying to equal Allies war crimes with Nazi Genocide.
I do not know you intention and in fact I do appreciate your post in term of History.
However, one fundamental in History is to analyze texts in the context and to question who wrote what, to whom and for which purpose.
Your apparent will to equal Nazism with Communism lead me to conclude it is a political issue.
You are not alone in this trend as Poland just passed a motion stating this.


You're mixing threads now, and making this about me and my motivations instead of the issues.


Nor I do. So to built Extermination camps in order to kill human being just in denying them humanity is worst than to created harsh work camps.
The ideology qualifies for the morality. Japanese and Nazi Germany were based on racism.
The others criminals as Stalin and Mao killed who challenged or were perceived as a potential dangers without race discrimination and that is why they are dictators.
It is said that Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler, due to the length of time of his dictatorship…


First of all, I'm not sure killing innocents based on race is somehow worse than killing based on any other pretext. Was the elimination of the Kulaks somehow morally superior to the ideology behind the Holocaust because it was based on a social class instead of a racial group?

Second, your point is somewhat undercut due to the fact that Stalin did indeed target a multitude of ethnic subgroups in Russia, exterminating some completely.


The fact that there were still prisoners to grant an amnesty is something that couldn’t happened in Sobibor or Treblinka…


This is more of a structural distinction than a moral one. The Nazis had concentration camps and then later separate extermination camps. People were released from the concentration camps up until the war started. In Russia, everyone got sent to the Gulags - common criminals, political dissidents, targeted groups, etc. That doesn't mean that those that were marked for death received anything but.


This can’t be said for the Japanese side.

That’s not true. There are certainly stories of compassionate Japanese soldiers, some of them risking severe punishment to help POWs and civilians. If we’re going to use stories of Americans begging people not to jump off cliffs to exonerate them from the endemic racism and war crimes they engaged in, the same standard must be applied to all sides.



Indeed.

You've got some reading to do, sir. As they say, you can lead a horse to the well, but you can't make him drink. I can guide you toward the truth by posting multiple well-sourced wikis and hard copy sources all supporting the fact that dehumanization, refusal to take prisoners, and mutilization were endemic among Allied forces in the Pacific, but I cannot hold your hand and walk you to the library to do the research yourself.



You are the one staking out a minority viewpoint, i.e., that the behavior of the United States Marines was somehow equivalent to the worst excesses of the Japanese Empire. When you make that assertion, you have a lot of work to do, and those telling you to your face that your ideas are nuttier than a granola bar are not out of line.

Well, we need to separate the discussion over the objective facts from the discussion of my subjective opinion.

Some people dispute the widespread nature of the atrocities committed by American forces. I think the research I've highlighted speaks for itself.

You seem to be disputing my subjective opinion that the moral depravity of the US forces was equivalent or worse than that of the Japanese. In this regard, I would place the "excesses" of the Marines on the same level as those of the Japanese. I'm not aware of Hirohito ever receiving any gifts made out of Americans, although I cannot be certain without further research.


And even though your motives are entirely salient, you skitter away from addressing them. Again, why is this dubious point so important to you?

From your Backroom contributions, I have noted that your standard operating procedure is to paint people in to boxes and then dismiss their comments outright. "Coming from a guy who is an admitted fan of Sarah Palin, anything you say must be stupid..." and so on.

My beliefs, motivations, etc. are not germane to the discussion.



I'm sympathetic to this view right up to the part about Germany on the Eastern front. The Germans were conducting a race war, a war of extermination - not just for the Jews, but to get the inferior Slavs out of the picture. It was far more systematic and intentional than simply shooting POWs because they're Asian. The goal of the war in the Pacific wasn't to clear out all the locals, and I don't think you've shown that the American high command issued orders that POWs should be shot. American massacres of POWs are obviously horrible and possibly (maybe even probably) racially oriented, but they were standard operating practices (or at least not as you've demonstrated).

If you want to make the case that the US was fighting a war of extermination in the Pacific, and you come up with evidence to back that up then maybe you could call the sides somewhat equivalent. But I don't see that from what you've posted.

As I said in the quote, there is certainly a significant moral distinction between the motivations of the German, Russian and Japanese leadership and those of the Western Allies. As you correctly note, the Nazis and Japanese, to a lesser extent, sought extermination, while the Allied leadership did not. I'm not arguing that.

What I am arguing is that the conduct of the US military forces in the Pacific sunk to the depths of that of the Germans in the East and the Japanese in China, etc; that there was the same belief in racial superiority, dehumanization, and related atrocities committed on the same scale, ie., not "isolated incidents".

In essence, FDR was no Tojo, but the similarities between the Japanese Marines and American Marines, on a moral level, are far closer.


I think in this PJ your position is untenable.

I think you misunderstand my position. See my response to Alexander the Pretty Good.

[Centurion1]

My beliefs, motivations, etc are not germane to the discussion.

HAHAHAHAAHAHA

Intentional???

[PanzerJaeger]

HAHAHAHAAHAHA

Intentional???

Can you please explain what you mean?

[Centurion1]

Can you please explain what you mean?

lol read what i said we are talking about axis allies here no? you had a bit of an unintentional pun i presume. dont get your panties in a bunch :wink:

[PanzerJaeger]

lol read what i said we are talking about axis allies here no? you had a bit of an unintentional pun i presume. dont get your panties in a bunch :wink:

Oh, my panties are unwound and fitting comfortably; I just don't understand. Not your fault, I'm sure, as I can be pretty dense. :yes:

[Centurion1]

we are talknig about the axis and allies of world war two and you said your
beliefs, motivations, etc. are not germane to the discussion

funny because its what everyone is accusing you of.

ahhhh not that funny i got a chuckle though.

[PanzerJaeger]

we are talknig about the axis and allies of world war two and you said your

funny because its what everyone is accusing you of.

ahhhh not that funny i got a chuckle though.

Ahh, I gotcha. :laugh4:

[Sarmatian]

And 2+2=5.... or close enough. I'm sorry, that's just sloppy, misleading, and over-inflates your point.

In a way, yes. When I know that X is in the range of 1-5 and Y is in the range of 500-1000, I have no troubles claiming Y is bigger than X. Whether it is 500 or 750 or 1000, it is bigger and by a big margin and my point stands.




This, I think, strikes at the heart of the disagreement. You and the others are taking solace in the fact that the Allies killed less than the Axis. As I've said and re-quoted over and over, I don't disagree. I just don't quantify morality through body counts. Is a man who kills 5 people worse than one who kills 3? Does the fact that Stalin's final body count is some x millions more than Hitler's make him a slightly worse person? Does your equation mean that Mao was the worst person in the world? Certainly the outcome is worse, but does it really take slightly more moral depravity to kill x than y. I think not. Once that line is crossed, once you begin to see people as disposable, body counts are just a function of the amount of power a person wields and how long they are allowed to continue killing.

That's not the half it. Nazism was an evil ideology based on racism and total contempt for human life that treated various people as vermin, rats and sub-humans, fit only to be exterminated or to be slaves. That ideology got a hold of a powerful country and managed to act on it. Had it been succesful, the world would have been a terrible place to live. Allies on the other hand, with all their quirks and flaws, were fighting a defensive war for the defeat of that ideology, and after that ideology had been defeated, Allies didn't take vengeance but had rebuilt Germany and Japan and allowed them to take their place in the world as influental and successful nations. That is not what would have happened had the Axis won the war. In the process of defeating that evil ideology, Allies also committed far less war crimes and killed far less innocent civilians.

I can not equate Allies with the Axis, unless it is proved to me that Allies started an aggressive war, whose goal was territorial expansion and extermination and enslavement of millions.

[drone]

What I am arguing is that the conduct of the US military forces in the Pacific sunk to the depths of that of the Germans in the East and the Japanese in China, etc; that there was the same belief in racial superiority, dehumanization, and related atrocities committed on the same scale, ie., not "isolated incidents".

In essence, FDR was no Tojo, but the similarities between the Japanese Marines and American Marines, on a moral level, are far closer.
You have avoided addressing my two points on this.

One (POWs), that fate of "surrendering" Japanese troops is largely due to the IJA's official stance on surrender, and the false promises of adhering to the Genevea conventions regarding Allied POWs. Not an excuse, but an understandable result. How were Japanese POWs treated once they were processed and away from the combat zones? How were Allied POWs treated in the same situation?

Two (civilians), that while Allied POWs were subjected to illegal treatment, the war crimes committed against civilians by the Japanese forces were worse, and on a far grander scale, than anything the Allied troops can be accused of.

[PanzerJaeger]

In a way, yes. When I know that X is in the range of 1-5 and Y is in the range of 500-1000, I have no troubles claiming Y is bigger than X. Whether it is 500 or 750 or 1000, it is bigger and by a big margin and my point stands.

Your attempts to retroactively justify the use of that graphic are undercut by the unfortunate fact that it inflates your point by millions of people, which is neither a small number on its face nor a statistically insignificant figure in relation to the chart. Sloppy and inaccurate.

And I'm not even challenging counting the Soviets with the Allies, which is questionable at best as they were just as responsible as Germany for starting the war and then went on to launch their own expansionist war against Finland. Only circumstance eventually forced them on to the Allied side, not any sort of idealogical similarities.



That's not the half it. Nazism was an evil ideology based on racism and total contempt for human life that treated various people as vermin, rats and sub-humans, fit only to be exterminated or to be slaves. That ideology got a hold of a powerful country and managed to act on it. Had it been succesful, the world would have been a terrible place to live. Allies on the other hand, with all their quirks and flaws, were fighting a defensive war for the defeat of that ideology, and after that ideology had been defeated, Allies didn't take vengeance but had rebuilt Germany and Japan and allowed them to take their place in the world as influental and successful nations. That is not what would have happened had the Axis won the war. In the process of defeating that evil ideology, Allies also committed far less war crimes and killed far less innocent civilians.


First of all, historical supposition has no place in this thread. We don't know what the world would have looked like had the Axis won. I could say, with some degree of historical evidence, that Stalin would have overrun Europe both in late 1941 or early 1942 had the Germans not invaded and again in 1945 had the US not used nuclear weapons. And...? Second, Germany and Japan were rebuilt for a very specific purpose, not out of some altruistic Allied intentions.

Other than that, you've got no arguments from me. Nobody is arguing that Nazism was about peace, love, and dandelions.


I can not equate Allies with the Axis, unless it is proved to me that Allies started an aggressive war, whose goal was territorial expansion and extermination and enslavement of millions.

I feel like we've come full circle. Again I must ask, don't you think you should separate the Western Allies from the Soviets?



You have avoided addressing my two points on this.

I have not avoided your points. They have been noted and I think addressed in earlier posts. I can only continue to repeat my points to a certain extent before monotony ensues.


One (POWs), that fate of "surrendering" Japanese troops is largely due to the IJA's official stance on surrender, and the false promises of adhering to the Genevea conventions regarding Allied POWs. Not an excuse, but an understandable result.

The research seems to indicate otherwise, that racial superiority and dehumanization of the Japanese lead to widespread refusal to take prisoners from the start, which did not happen in Europe. As you said, though, there really is no excuse.


How were Japanese POWs treated once they were processed and away from the combat zones?

You mean those 600 hundred who survived to get there by '44? I'm not sure you're making the point that you intended.


Two (civilians), that while Allied POWs were subjected to illegal treatment, the war crimes committed against civilians by the Japanese forces were worse, and on a far grander scale, than anything the Allied troops can be accused of.

Well, I have already touched on one mass rape by American forces and there are others, but yes, the war ended before Japan proper was invaded.

[drone]

The research seems to indicate otherwise, that racial superiority and dehumanization of the Japanese lead to widespread refusal to take prisoners from the start, which did not happen in Europe. As you said, though, there really is no excuse.And the fact that IJA troops wouldn't surrender as a general rule, or would fake a surrender for an ambush, etc. You are glossing over the fact that the command structure wanted POWs, for intelligence and propaganda. Prisoner execution was not condoned, if anything the propaganda machine was too effective in this case. The same cannot be said within the IJA. Given the nature of the fighting, I'm certain Marines shot surrendering Japanese troops. In some circumstances, these actions would be understandable, if not excusable. In other circumstances, an outright war crime. The scale of the latter is still in question.


You mean those 600 hundred who survived to get there by '44? I'm not sure you're making the point that you intended.Those, and the ~40-50k taken before the end of hostilities. When you say "by '44" are you talking '41-43, or including '44? Wiki has 921 POWs at Saipan (1944) alone. The Marines didn't have a chance to start taking prisoners until, what, Guadalcanal, and didn't really get moving until 1944, after sorting out their island assault issues from Tarawa. Again, how were the processed Japanese POWs treated, compared to the Allied POWs?


Well, I have already touched on one mass rape by American forces and there are others, but yes, the war ended before Japan proper was invaded.So Hiroshima/Nagasaki saved the Japanese from the predations of American forces? ~;)


The Marines - fueled by a government sponsored dehumanization campaign - put even the Rape of Nanking to shame in the way they conducted the war.You still have yet to justify this claim. It fails on both acts and scale.

[The Wizard]

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?

Don't try to change the subject. Fact is, war-related famine in a country that is the victim of aggression by another is the fault of the latter. This is undeniable, and I see you've wisely chosen to stop trying to deny it.

As for the victims of Chinese civil war being included in the number of victims of the Japanese invasion and occupation: I really, really doubt that takes place anywhere except the official PRC history of the war (and maybe the ROC version, too). But academic studies on the subject? Don't think so.


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.

You may notice, if you read my post, that I said nothing regarding the veracity of your claim about U.S. war crimes. All I did was ridicule the assumption that the war crimes carried out by individual Marines or even units of Marines can somehow, in any way, equal a crime on the sheer scale of the Rape of Nanjing.

The point is really that you're trying to morally equate the Allies with the Axis on false grounds. The two are so far apart in number and scale of crimes that it isn't even funny. Just take one look at Louis's post. It would have ended this thread, if you had had the courage to simply distance yourself from the ridiculous claims you're making.

EDIT: I mean, all I really have to do to put your utter nonsense to rest is quote from one of your own posts:


The US military's own correspondence explicitly acknowledges the widespread nature of these practices, as do the films shown to soldiers imploring them not to kill surrendering Japanese.

The U.S. Armed Forces made movies to dissuade its own troops from killing surrendering members of the enemy. What more proof do you need that you are trying to compare incidents to policy of the highest order? What next, PJ? Are you gonna tell us that Goebbels and the Japanese made movies telling their soldiers not to kill the Jewish pest and Slavic Untermensch, or the inferior Chinese? :laugh4:


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.

No, I responded to A Very Super Market talking about the motivations of Northern soldiers.

[Sarmatian]

Your attempts to retroactively justify the use of that graphic are undercut by the unfortunate fact that it inflates your point by millions of people, which is neither a small number on its face nor a statistically insignificant figure in relation to the chart. Sloppy and inaccurate.

Still doesn't change the point. Take away those millions and still a huge difference remain.


And I'm not even challenging counting the Soviets with the Allies, which is questionable at best as they were just as responsible as Germany for starting the war and then went on to launch their own expansionist war against Finland. Only circumstance eventually forced them on to the Allied side, not any sort of idealogical similarities.

Debatable, but that's for another thread.


Other than that, you've got no arguments from me. Nobody is arguing that Nazism was about peace, love, and dandelions.


Unfortunately, it seems you do. Ok, you say that it wasn't your intention to equate Axis and Allies, I'll accept that and let it rest, we're really not getting anywhere. It's just that it wasn't only my impression but pretty much everyone involved in the discussion got the same impression. So, if that wasn't your intention, maybe you should worry about how you're coming off.

[PanzerJaeger]

You still have yet to justify this claim. It fails on both acts and scale.

On the contrary, the research indicates that racism, dehumanization, refusal to take prisoners, executions, mass rapes and mutilazation were common and widespread among US forces in the Pacific. Maybe it would be helpful if you told me what you feel the Japanese did that sinks to an even lower moral level.


The U.S. Armed Forces made movies to dissuade its own troops from killing surrendering members of the enemy. What more proof do you need that you are trying to compare incidents to policy of the highest order? What next, PJ? Are you gonna tell us that Goebbels and the Japanese made movies telling their soldiers not to kill the Jewish pest and Slavic Untermensch, or the inferior Chinese?

You are making my point for me.

German soldiers, for example, were compelled to commit atrocities through a carrot and stick approach by the top Nazi leadership. First, they were force-fed a daily diet of propaganda that dehumanized the Eastern peoples and justified German manifest destiny. Hitler himself used all his charismatic might to fill them with feelings of racial superiority and talk of "subhumans" and "vermin". They were given every excuse in the book from their leaders to justify their actions from the fight against bolshevism to the need for German living space. When encouragement wasn't enough, they used punishment. Those German soldiers who refused orders could expect a wide range of reprisals. They could only hope to be sent to a harsh front, and not wind up in a concentration camp themselves. Still, the Nazi leadership felt the need to continually sanatize their genocide. IIRC, by the time Treblinka was set up, no more than 50 or 100 Germans ever worked there at one time.

American soldiers, on the other hand, had no such encouragement. IIRC, FDR never denigrated the Japanese on a racial basis, and soldiers committing atrocities could technically be charged - although the vast majority of officers looked the other way, if they didn't support it outright. As I pointed out, the military even made an effort to increase live prisoner taking, for intelligence purposes. Despite all that, American soldiers engaged in racism, dehumanization, and atrocities on a wide scale. American culture - from Time Magazine to Hollywood - relished in the same type of racism that Goebbels worked so hard to foster. Unlike the top-down nature of the war crimes committed by the Axis dictatorships, these American war crimes were cultivated from the bottom. American soldiers needed no carrots or sticks to boil the flesh off of Japanese skulls and send them home to their girlfriends, such behavior just came naturally to them.

This is why body counts are not the best context in which to judge morality.


Unfortunately, it seems you do. Ok, you say that it wasn't your intention to equate Axis and Allies, I'll accept that and let it rest, we're really not getting anywhere. It's just that it wasn't only my impression but pretty much everyone involved in the discussion got the same impression. So, if that wasn't your intention, maybe you should worry about how you're coming off.

I long ago stopped bothering. My perspective on the war is not aligned with the black/white, good/evil narrative that has emerged, and any deviation from said narrative usually yields hostility.

As for this discussion, it is all just an intellectual exercise for me. I am not of the belief that we should apply 2010 moral norms to people who lived in 1940. It has been interesting to challenge some established perceptions, and I do think I have opened some people's eyes to elements of history that they may not have known about before, so it has not all been for naught.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

German soldiers, for example, were compelled to commit atrocities through a carrot and stick approach by the top Nazi leadership. First, they were force-fed a daily diet of propaganda that dehumanized the Eastern peoples and justified German manifest destiny. Hitler himself used all his charismatic might to fill them with feelings of racial superiority and talk of "subhumans" and "vermin". They were given every excuse in the book from their leaders to justify their actions from the fight against bolshevism to the need for German living space. When encouragement wasn't enough, they used punishment. Those German soldiers who refused orders could expect a wide range of reprisals. They could only hope to be sent to a harsh front, and not wind up in a concentration camp themselves. Still, the Nazi leadership felt the need to continually sanatize their genocide. IIRC, by the time Treblinka was set up, no more than 50 or 100 Germans ever worked there at one time.
That's quite the contrary position to develop - that the Germans wouldn't have committed atrocities without being poked by their commanding officers. The Germans basically agreed with the Nazis and weren't troubled at all by the "purge the Jews" business - which was no Nazi secret. And how many German soldiers were actually punished for refusing to participate in the race war on the Eastern Front? It's a pretty small figure, and the book discussed here a few months ago found just one corporal, who was executed for hiding Jews (and having more courage than the entire Wehrmacht put together).

[Strike For The South]

American soldiers, on the other hand, had no such encouragement. IIRC, FDR never denigrated the Japanese on a racial basis, and soldiers committing atrocities could technically be charged - although the vast majority of officers looked the other way, if they didn't support it outright. As I pointed out, the military even made an effort to increase live prisoner taking, for intelligence purposes. Despite all that, American soldiers engaged in racism, dehumanization, and atrocities on a wide scale. American culture - from Time Magazine to Hollywood - relished in the same type of racism that Goebbels worked so hard to foster. Unlike the top-down nature of the war crimes committed by the Axis dictatorships, these American war crimes were cultivated from the bottom. American soldiers needed no carrots or sticks to boil the flesh off of Japanese skulls and send them home to their girlfriends, such behavior just came naturally to them.
.

Clearly the Germans are better than us....perhaps some type of supermen?

So why in your opinion are Americans so ready to commit ethnocide?

The war is a soft spot for you as the best you can do is cherry pick examples of trinkites taken by American soliders with the rape of nanking and auschwitz

You're fair and balanced veiw is bordering on relativism and trying to reconcile the NAZIs...the schtick is growing old

[PanzerJaeger]

That's quite the contrary position to develop - that the Germans wouldn't have committed atrocities without being poked by their commanding officers.

My position - as I clearly stated - was that the Germans received both encouragement from their political leaders to commit war crimes and feared reprisals for not doing so, and that the Americans were not under such constraints, but still engaged in atrocities. I was discussing context, not guessing about hypotheticals. It is obviously impossible to know the extent to which the Germans would have engaged in such behaviors without inducements from their leaders.


Clearly the Germans are better than us....perhaps some type of supermen?

Certainly not. While FDR's governing intentions were far from altruistic, they were many levels above those of Hitler and the Nazis in a moral context. America in general was far better than Nazi Germany in that regard, which should be obvious. I'm discussing specifics and you're trying to turn this into a question of who was better - Germany or the US. The answer to that is not in dispute.


So why in your opinion are Americans so ready to commit ethnocide?

Some researchers have hypothesized that cultures in which hunting is extremely prevalent are more likely to dehumanize their enemies - making them little more than animals to be hunted. As a hunter myself, I have my doubts about that, but I really have no idea. War brings out both the best and the worst in people.


The war is a soft spot for you as the best you can do is cherry pick examples of trinkites taken by American soliders with the rape of nanking and auschwitz

I don't think killing people to take their teeth is exactly equivalent to a trip to the souvenir shop. If you're going to accuse me of bias, minimizing what the Americans did only weakens your position.


You're fair and balanced veiw is bordering on relativism and trying to reconcile the NAZIs...the schtick is growing old

What is growing old is people reading what they want to into my statements instead of what I actually write.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

My position - as I clearly stated - was that the Germans received both encouragement from their political leaders to commit war crimes and feared reprisals for not doing so, and that the Americans were not under such constraints, but still engaged in atrocities. I was discussing context, not guessing about hypotheticals. It is obviously impossible to know the extent to which the Germans would have engaged in such behaviors without inducements from their leaders.
But that's basically what you're implying by bringing it up - that the US troops committed these crimes voluntarily (which is true) in contrast to the Germans who were forced to (which is false).

Additionally, you haven't really shown the scale of the atrocities the US troops committed. You've shown that the Americans killed a lot of surrendering Japanese POWs (I don't think you've given an estimate though) and you've alluded to some rapes. But we can't say for instance whether a majority of US units stationed in the Pacific committed war crimes or not because you haven't really said anything except "the research is there." Give us some links with the parts you think are important quoted for us.

[Strike For The South]

Certainly not. While FDR's governing intentions were far from altruistic, they were many levels above those of Hitler and the Nazis in a moral context. America in general was far better than Nazi Germany in that regard, which should be obvious. I'm discussing specifics and you're trying to turn this into a question of who was better - Germany or the US. The answer to that is not in dispute.
.

You post implies the Germans showed restriant while being encouraged while the Americans were licking there chops while being restrained

Unless you can point to some factor in American society that is vastly different from German society I have a hard time beliving you.

I'm sure Bavarians hunt as much as Texans no?

[The Wizard]

You are making my point for me.

On the contrary. What you wrote has barely anything to do with what I did. Except to underwrite it, that is.


Unlike the top-down nature of the war crimes committed by the Axis dictatorships, these American war crimes were cultivated from the bottom.

And that's why they occurred far less often and far, far less systematically than in the German or Japanese militaries. As you yourself point out. :laugh4:


This is why body counts are not the best context in which to judge morality.

Indeed, I agree. Rather, intent is. And the American intent was clearly to limit war crimes as much as possible. German and Japanese intent was to maximize them to the fullest. Need I say more?


Some researchers have hypothesized that cultures in which hunting is extremely prevalent are more likely to dehumanize their enemies - making them little more than animals to be hunted. As a hunter myself, I have my doubts about that, but I really have no idea. War brings out both the best and the worst in people.

Dude... you're the one claiming the Americans/Allies were just as bad as the Axis. You're the one claiming what Marines did to surrendering Japanese soldiers was just as bad as the Rape of Nanjing. In other words, you're the one trying to generalize. Now you're complaining when we argue on that premise? Come again?

[Louis VI the Fat]

* who were the racists back then? *
There is always one weak spot in the mainstream historical narrative. Namely, that is it focused on Europeans, or by extention, to 'civilised' non-Europeans.

A certain discrepancy was not felt back then, which we do nowadays. Namely, there is outrage over German genocidal acts against Jews and others, outrage at their treatment of Poland, which had to dissapear in genocide, enslavement, suffocation, outrage at Japan's cruelty, its perverse sadism, in East Asia . But this outrage was not extended to the treatment of non-Europeans / non-Europeans considered uncivilised.

Yet, what is the history of the Western liberal-democratic powers? Was the fate of the Aboriginals in Australia not what the Germans had in mind for the Poles? What did the French, Portuguese, Belgians, Dutch, Americans do in their colonies, and at home? The period of Germany's imperial warmongering, 1870-1945, roughly corresponds with that of the French second colonial Empire, 1870-1960's.

Racial superiority thinking was the norm for all. The Germans, whose colonial empire 'consisted of a single sausage factory in Tanganyika', were exceptional for bringing racial superiority thought to Europe. What Germany learned fighting the Herrero, it brought back home and applied in Europe. Including the wholesale murder of Germans - those first victims of the Nazis.


More briefly, killing all Poles is wrong, killing all native Americans is okay.


There is a moral lesson there. I disagree that it was not learned, or has been brushed aside. The very realisation of it was instrumental in de-colonisation, in the creation of multicultural societies, and in the extention of civil rights in the US and eventually South Africa. (One funny irony is that a lot of people admire the Nazis because they abhor multiculturalism, because they dislike Blacks. Little do they realise that it was the very example of moral bankruptcy of Nazism that created the multicultural society in the West.)

I would agree that this perspective remains underappreciated in any moral narrative of the history of the period. But as so often, once a historical narrative has taken hold, it is nigh impossible to replace. Even serious scholarship often limits itself to dutifully filling in the footnotes.


(One caveat: Nazism, then and now, is founded on the principle of inequality. The nazi can rightfully call out western liberalism for their not living up to their own liberal standards of equality. But nazism glorifies it, whereas liberalism is disgraced by it. Some hypocricy there is, moral equivalence not)

[PanzerJaeger]

My apologies for overlooking this thread.


But that's basically what you're implying by bringing it up - that the US troops committed these crimes voluntarily (which is true) in contrast to the Germans who were forced to (which is false).

I was not implying anything; I was stating facts in order to give the discussion a different dimension. So far, the entirety of the debate has revolved around body counts. Is it not also valid to look at the context in which the atrocities were committed in judging the morality of the soldiers involved? The Japanese and Germans were under very different conditions than the Americans. So, for example, while it is justified to note that the American soldiers did not participate in the kind of government orchestrated genocide that some German soldiers did, it is also justified to note that some American soldiers took it upon themselves to engage in widespread atrocities without any prompting from their government. The point being, moral superiority between the soldiers is illusory.


Additionally, you haven't really shown the scale of the atrocities the US troops committed. You've shown that the Americans killed a lot of surrendering Japanese POWs (I don't think you've given an estimate though) and you've alluded to some rapes. But we can't say for instance whether a majority of US units stationed in the Pacific committed war crimes or not because you haven't really said anything except "the research is there." Give us some links with the parts you think are important quoted for us.

I have posted as much information as I could find from Wikipedia and referred readers to hard copy sources including the US government's own research on the subject and several postwar historians. In the realm of an internet discussion board, I'm not sure what else I can do.

I am not going to repost the entirety of the wikis (they are on page three) but I think these get to the heart of the issue:


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.


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.



You post implies the Germans showed restriant while being encouraged while the Americans were licking there chops while being restrained

My post only implied that German soldiers and American soldiers were in very different situations, which should be kept in perspective during the discussion. My overarching point throughout this discussion has been that Allied soldiers were not particularly morally superior to those of the Axis. I don't think the German soldiers of the time were any better than their American counterparts, besides, of course, in combat. :grin:


And that's why they occurred far less often and far, far less systematically than in the German or Japanese militaries. As you yourself point out.

Less systematically, but less often? Not in the Pacific. And that is at the heart of my point. Axis war crimes were perpetrated within a system that both ordered them and punished those who refused the orders. Allied war crimes emanated from the feelings and beliefs of the soldiers themselves with little encouragement from their leaders. How does that make them particularly morally superior?


Indeed, I agree. Rather, intent is. And the American intent was clearly to limit war crimes as much as possible. German and Japanese intent was to maximize them to the fullest. Need I say more?

You're talking about governments, I'm talking about soldiers. And I would hardly describe the American intent as "clearly to limit war crimes as much as possible". In actuality, throughout much of the war the American military took a laissez-faire approach to war crimes committed in the Pacific, until it was realized that refusing to take prisoners and killing those that were taken damaged intelligence gathering. Morality had nothing to do with their attitude toward the Japanese.



Dude... you're the one claiming the Americans/Allies were just as bad as the Axis. You're the one claiming what Marines did to surrendering Japanese soldiers was just as bad as the Rape of Nanjing. In other words, you're the one trying to generalize. Now you're complaining when we argue on that premise? Come again?

I don't understand how my response about possible motivations for committing atrocities can be construed as a complaint.



...good post...

Interesting observations. It is important to note that Hitler was most likely influenced by, and certainly justified his expansionist policies on, European colonialism and particularly the American extermination of the natives. Lebensraum was very much a 20th century update to American Manifest Destiny.

Doesn't make him any less guilty, but it is worth noting.

[Megas Methuselah]

I disagree that it was not learned, or has been brushed aside.

In many ways, I suppose you're right. Still a long way to go; it's not an easy thing getting an entire race back up on their feet after centuries of genocide, you know? But at least it is happening, little by little, in spite of the mixed messages the provincial and federal governments have been sending.

Anyways, it would seem that Canada is finally getting aboard with that Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_on_the_Rights_of_Indigenous_Peoples#Canada). Can you imagine it? With this coming by, all sorts of things are possible: for one thing, imagine Canada actually agreeing to a satisfactory reformation of the Indian Act! Within my lifetime, and hopefully with my eager participation, my First Nation(-state) may one day have our right to regulate our citizenship recognized by the Canadian government.

As it stands right now, our citizenship is controlled by that same Indian Act, which is simply some stupid **** Canada pulled out of their ass to control our lives. Imagine how much they'd be laughed at if they came up with something called the "French Act" and told France which Frenchmen were eligible for French citizenship and which weren't (among other things)? I don't see anyone laughing at the Indian Act, though.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I want to echo Louis's post just because I think it really cuts to the heart of the matter. Massacring POWs was discourage by Allied brass and we (as part of the generally liberal West) view it with horror as a shameful act. In contrast, the Wehrmacht atrocities were celebrated by the Nazis and were the whole point of the Nazis and their Wehrmacht henchmen. That's the difference between the Allies and the Axis. There's the superiority.

[Ibrahim]

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.

you are basically correct, but that part is actually misleading: correct, the North did institute the draft (in 1863), and their aggressiveness in pursuing it did cause the draft riots in NYC that year (among other factors), but the way the draft worked was such that only a minority of the soldiers were actually drafted (~6%). here is a source that describes the draft in its basic process (http://www.wtv-zone.com/civilwar/usdraft.html).

the south also instituted a draft (in 1862 (http://www.wtv-zone.com/civilwar/condraft.html)), but also, as in the north, it didn't account for the majority of troops that served.

either way, both armies were mostly-ney, overwhelmingly-manned by volunteers, not draftees.

here is a source with the number I mentioned (http://www.civilwarhome.com/conscription.htm).

[Furunculus]

anthony beevor on allied war crimes:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,692037,00.html

[PanzerJaeger]

This will certainly be an interesting read, although nothing in the article is particularly new information to those who know the truth. I will be interested in his research on Allied commanders issuing take no prisoners orders. It further deteriorates the standard "random acts of violence" line...


According to the findings of German historian Peter Lieb, many Canadian and American units were given orders on D-Day to take no prisoners. If true, that might help explain the mystery of how only 66 of the 130 Germans the Americans took prisoner on Omaha Beach made it to collecting points for the captured on the beach.

It is also conspicuous that the Allies rarely captured members of the Waffen SS. Was it because the members of this organization -- with its Totenkopf (death's head) insignia -- had sworn allegiance to Hitler until death and often fought to the last man? Or did the Allied propaganda about the SS have its desired effect on soldiers? "Many of them probably deserved to be shot in any case and know it," a British XXX Corps report bluntly stated.



Given the high number of casualties they suffered, Allied paratroopers were particularly determined to exact bloody revenge. Near one village, Audouville-la-Hubert, they massacred 30 captured Wehrmacht soldiers in a single killing spree.

On the beaches, soldiers in an engineering brigade had to protect German prisoners from enraged paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division, who shouted: "Turn those prisoners over to us. Turn them over to us. We know what to do to them."

American troops, literally begging to kill POWs. Where is the moral superiority?

[Vladimir]

American troops, literally begging to kill POWs. Where is the moral superiority?

I'd say it's with the American engineers.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

There's certainly some interesting parallels between that war and the Vietnam War.


Guerrilla War in Southeast Asia
Americans + Collaborators vs Revolutionaries
America Asked by Revolutionaries For Aid Against Colonial Oppressors (Spanish)
Previous War of Independence Against Said Oppressors
Similar War Crimes on Both Sides (killing of civilians by Americans, collaborators by Filipinos, the old "bury-them-neck-deep-in-dirt-and-leave-them-for-the-ants" trick)
Exposure of Brutality of War by American Media
Anti-war Activism by Well-Known Figures/"Celebrities"
Ridiculously High Native Casualties (Philippines - up to 1.2 million (~15%), Vietnam - up to 5 million (~12%)


I guess America technically beat the Filipinos, but they had to give up the islands 30 years later.

Actually, Max Boot does lump them into the same category -- small wars -- but uses Vietnam as proof that the USA was able to ignore lots of lessons on how to fight such a war effectively (he notes that Vietnam was not a small war numerically by any means, only its limited war concept).

We conquered Cuba, Peurto Rico, Guam, and the Phillipines. All but Guam were either granted independence or given the option to do so. America's "imperialism" has never really been whole-hearted. Heck, we even paid Mexico for the land we took at the end of that war. I'm sure the Europeans of the time thought we were idiots for buying land that we'd conquered fair and square.


RE: Patton and "take no prisoners"

Sounds like Patton's variant on the "too late chum" rule from WW1. Soldiers throughout history have enforced (informally) variations on that one. Shouldn't have applied to a group who'd already managed to get their surrender accepted, though. Bradley was a straight shooter and wanted that sort of thing stopped. Patton probably couldn't care less save to minimize the potential distraction.


Remember, at its core, there is nothing elegant or particularly noble about war. The basic model of warfare goes back to the bronze age if not earlier: win by any means fair or foul, murder all those capable of bearing arms against you or who are too weak/frail/whatever to sell, then take all their stuff, take all their women, and sell the kids as slaves. Any result that is less brutal reflects some degree of civilization.

[Brenus]

“Where is the moral superiority?” In the fact that it was not an order issued by the President of the United States of America.
Did the engineers give the POW? No soldier of the Wehrmacht would have resisted a SS order…
Question: I thought the101 Airborne was inland (St Marie de la Mer)… How did they arrive on the beaches to ask for the prisoners? It is a long walk...

Now, about the make-no-prisoners things, it is a reality of war that the assault troops don’t do them.
I do remember when in training it was this kind of sentences we were told as you have no time to waste and men to spent for guards…
I know as well it is this kind of things that are said to galvanise the troops, as fixing bayonet…

The difference of PZ example of allies’ war crimes is that they were done during or directly after the battle, and in small scales.
Nothing compare with Oradour Sur Glane where the village was picked at random as the released SS was not able to point out in which of the Oradour he saw armed Partisans…

Now, after a long though I have to say that one PZ argument is quite valid.
The SS and soldiers of the Heer were raised in a universe of violence and des-humanisation of the enemies. So for them, killing was not a problem as such.
An Allies soldiers from Democratic Countries, they knew in theory the right from the wrong…

“Totenkopf (death's head) insignia”: Probably the letters SS did the job as the Skulls and Bones were also on the Tank Crew uniforms, heritage from the Ulhan.
And as Allies Propaganda for the SS, I think the German Propaganda was largely responsible for the well earned reputation of brutality and merciless conduct in war of the SS troops.
So, the SS have only Goebbels and Himmler to blame for the US soldier to know who they were...

[PanzerJaeger]

“Where is the moral superiority?” In the fact that it was not an order issued by the President of the United States of America.

I don't think anyone is claiming that FDR was on the same moral level as Adolf Hitler. The point that I've been making throughout the thread is that the average Allied soldier was not morally superior to his Axis counterpart; and the scale of the crimes is a function of their leadership, not superior ethics. Just as the Germans did, the Allied soldiers had no qualms about following immoral orders, whether they were to drop fire bombs on hundreds of thousands of innocent woman and children or to kill POWs; and just as the Japanese engaged in independent horrible acts of savagery that necessitated no orders, so to did the Allied troops in the Pacific.

The illusion of the "Good War" is just that - an illusion. Not even the legacy of the Normandy campaign is safe anymore from the truth about Allied war crimes.



Did the engineers give the POW? No soldier of the Wehrmacht would have resisted a SS order…

Why do you say that? The Waffen SS was subordinated to Wehrmacht commanders throughout most of the war. Such a situation would have depended on the ranking officer, not the branch.


Now, about the make-no-prisoners things, it is a reality of war that the assault troops don’t do them.

Many of the SS were assault troops, as well.


The difference of PZ example of allies’ war crimes is that they were done during or directly after the battle, and in small scales.

It is hard to say that the firebombing of cities was small in scale. And if you put any stock in primary sources, the killing of German POWs was not small scale either.


"I've interviewed well over 1000 combat veterans. Only one of them said he shot a prisoner... Perhaps as many as one-third of the veterans...however, related incidents in which they saw other GIs shooting unarmed German prisoners who had their hands up."



So, the SS have only Goebbels and Himmler to blame for the US soldier to know who they were...

And if they were killed after surrendering, they have no one to blame but their killers. :shrug:

[Strike For The South]

Amborse Sucks as a historian.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Amborse Sucks as a historian.Well, quite (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/11/national/11AMBR.html?pagewanted=1). He and his family business of plagiarised popular history.

[PanzerJaeger]

Oh I agree. What he did to the legacy of the Fallschirmjäger in his rendition of the battle of Brecourt was nothing short of a travesty.

However, he did conduct thousands of primary source interviews with veterans and I have no reason to doubt his findings. His distortions are in his unwillingness to fact check those findings and his flair for the dramatic, not in the alteration of the interviews themselves. As an Allied cheerleader, he would be more prone to downplay Allied war crimes.

[Brenus]

“The point that I've been making throughout the thread is that the average Allied soldier was not morally superior to his Axis counterpart”
I would disagree on this part: The average Allied soldier was morally superior to his Axis counterpart, and the scale of the slaughter shows it.
And the fact that the Allis mostly liberated territories, not participating (more or less willingly, I give you this –134,000 Germans arrested by the Gestapo in the first three month of 1944)) in a war of aggression…
I don’t know if the book, Lieutenant de Panzers, from August von Kageneck is translated in English. Read it, and you will see that the average German soldier was aware of what happened in the name of Germany as they witnessed the slaughter from their eyes. Thanks to their officers’ apathy, they didn’t react then participate to it.
“I saw, several times, corps of men with long hair in the ditches. They had been executed. So the German Army was drawn down the rank of witches hunters” (p125).
Here, it is not the result of a revenge due to battle, but the cold blood operation, the same than the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto of Tarnopol (p123) by the SS.

You can gather hundred of case of Germans POW killed by allies’ soldiers. However you hardly find complete Germans villages and populations killed or burned alive by Allied Soldiers, even when the Werewolves tried in vain to conduct a guerrilla war fair. Temptation was there, especially in the French side, but it didn’t happened.

Now, about war veterans (1 on 3) saying they saw somebody else killing at list one prisoner: Absurd.
I interviewed War Veterans of another war (Indochina) and one thing is difficult for them is to admit bad conduct on the field. It took ages that the French acknowledge the fact that in Algeria not only the Paratroopers and the Legion did torture but the Chasseurs Alpins, the usual conscript did it as well…
And having interview war veteran, I can tell you that they tell what you want to heard… This kind of research has to be back up with statistic, and graves…

“And if they were killed after surrendering, they have no one to blame but their killers” and the fact they were in political units supporting a racist ideology that told the world they will give no mercy and expect none…

“As an Allied cheerleader, he would be more prone to downplay Allied war crimes.” Not in you want to sell nowadays.

“Just as the Germans did, the Allied soldiers had no qualms about following immoral orders, whether they were to drop fire bombs on hundreds of thousands of innocent woman and children or to kill POWs”
Do you have the proof that the killed POW in following orders? No, because it was none.
We have the document signed by Hitler ad the OKW, we have the speeches from Himmler, Goebbels, Hitler, Goering and all the others.

And about the killing of innocent by bombing, it was a war that the German started (and the Italians as my grand mother would have testified being under their bombs).
And it was a war that the German innocent population loved, until they realised too late the surge was turning…

“We fought hard, meter per meter, for nothing, no even not honour.
For which honour would we be able to fight for? For the honour of the SS who took refuge, like us, in this hiding place, and executed the last prisoners? For the honour of a German Army that blindly serve the will of the criminal fool who yet prepared in his bunker in Berlin his suicide-escape? For the honour of a Regime we all desired but we ignored the sinister goals? For the honour of the Flag, but which one? We had none from long time ago.” P 180

[Louis VI the Fat]

“As an Allied cheerleader, he would be more prone to downplay Allied war crimes.” Not in you want to sell nowadays.



And it was a war that the German innocent population loved, until they realised too late the surge was turning…



“We fought hard, meter per meter, for nothing, no even not honour.
For which honour would we be able to fight for? For the honour of the SS who took refuge, like us, in this hiding place, and executed the last prisoners? For the honour of a German Army that blindly serve the will of the criminal fool who yet prepared in his bunker in Berlin his suicide-escape? For the honour of a Regime we all desired but we ignored the sinister goals? For the honour of the Flag, but which one? We had none from long time ago.” P 180Sad truths, all three statements above.


I couldn't say which of the three I find most frustrating...

[Pannonian]

The difference of PZ example of allies’ war crimes is that they were done during or directly after the battle, and in small scales.
Nothing compare with Oradour Sur Glane where the village was picked at random as the released SS was not able to point out in which of the Oradour he saw armed Partisans…


It says much that Oradour Sur Glane was but a minor incident in the overall picture of German atrocities. For the western armies, an incident like that would be a major cause for shame, and a permanent black mark on their military. For the Germans, an entire village, men, women, elderly, children, all massacred, mown down in a building or locked in a church and burned to death, is but another small detail in the devastation of Europe and the systematic extermination of certain of its peoples. Not even the most murderous of ancient civilisations ever got close to the levsls of barbarity which the Germans and Japanese set in WW2.

[PanzerJaeger]

I would disagree on this part: The average Allied soldier was morally superior to his Axis counterpart, and the scale of the slaughter shows it.

This is where it gets tricky. For example, the biggest indictment against Germany is certainly the concentration camp system, yet only an extraordinarily tiny percentage of German soldiers actually had anything to do with them. IIRC, Treblinka, the site of the killing of nearly 1,000,000 people, was operated by no more than 25 SS officers and 100 guards of mixed nationality. What people often fail to realize is just how few people it took to kill so many, and how much of an effort the Nazis made to hide what they were doing.


I don’t know if the book, Lieutenant de Panzers, from August von Kageneck is translated in English. Read it, and you will see that the average German soldier was aware of what happened in the name of Germany as they witnessed the slaughter from their eyes. Thanks to their officers’ apathy, they didn’t react then participate to it.
“I saw, several times, corps of men with long hair in the ditches. They had been executed. So the German Army was drawn down the rank of witches hunters” (p125).
Here, it is not the result of a revenge due to battle, but the cold blood operation, the same than the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto of Tarnopol (p123) by the SS.

I appreciate the depth such anecdotal commentary brings to the discussion, but I'm not sure it makes much of a point. I can produce accounts of Allied soldiers witnessing Allied crimes. :shrug:


You can gather hundred of case of Germans POW killed by allies’ soldiers. However you hardly find complete Germans villages and populations killed or burned alive by Allied Soldiers, even when the Werewolves tried in vain to conduct a guerrilla war fair. Temptation was there, especially in the French side, but it didn’t happened.

You can certainly find plenty of German villages and populations killed by Allied soldiers. Think about that.


Now, about war veterans (1 on 3) saying they saw somebody else killing at list one prisoner: Absurd.
“As an Allied cheerleader, he would be more prone to downplay Allied war crimes.” Not in you want to sell nowadays.

That would apply to someone like James Bacque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses), but Ambrose is on the other end of the spectrum. He made his living glorifying Allied soldiers, so I'm not sure what he would gain from falsifying such a claim - which leads me to believe there may be some merit to it.


Do you have the proof that the killed POW in following orders? No, because it was none.
Well, such a case was the genesis of this thread. Another example would be Major-General Raymond Hufft, who admitted to ordering his troops to take no prisoners during the crossing of the Rhine. That wasn't very hard.


And about the killing of innocent by bombing, it was a war that the German started (and the Italians as my grand mother would have testified being under their bombs).

And that gave the Allies carte blanche to dump millions of tonnes of bombs on civilian centers with the intent of killing and terrorizing as many as possible? Again, where is the moral superiority in that?



It says much that Oradour Sur Glane was but a minor incident in the overall picture of German atrocities. For the western armies, an incident like that would be a major cause for shame, and a permanent black mark on their military. For the Germans, an entire village, men, women, elderly, children, all massacred, mown down in a building or locked in a church and burned to death, is but another small detail in the devastation of Europe and the systematic extermination of certain of its peoples.

It must require some great measure of cognitive dissonance to highlight with such righteous indignation an incidence of a church with people inside being burned down to show how horrible the German soldiers were, considering the Allies burned down entire cities full of people with the expressed purpose of inflicting terror and death on the civilians inside.


The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive...should be unambiguously stated as the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany. It should be emphasized that the destruction of houses, public utilities, transport and lives, the creation of a refugee problem on an unprecedented scale, and the breakdown of morale both at home and at the battle fronts by fear of extended and intensified bombing, are accepted and intended aims of our bombing policy. They are not by-products of attempts to hit factories.



Not even the most murderous of ancient civilisations ever got close to the levsls of barbarity which the Germans and Japanese set in WW2.


That is, of course, patently false. Ethnic cleansing has been around as long as humanity has. Ironically, the earliest genocide that comes to my mind was committed by the Jews.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

For example, the biggest indictment against Germany is certainly the concentration camp system
Not the race war on the Russian front?

[Cyclops]

Excellent thread, well argued with reference to sources, its very stimulating to see.

I'd observe war is all hell as W. Tecumseh Sherman said. You start groups of people killing and tell them to stop at certain arbitrary points. Its all horrible.

As an Australian I was raised with the view "we were good and they were bad" whoever they were. Japanese "revisionism" is still derided, Italian cowardice is a byword and WW2 is seen in clear terms of good vs evil. In fact WW1 is still largely seen as good vs evil (yay the justice of Aussies attacking Turks so the Romanovs can rule Greece...wtf?).

A mate of mine met an old German Wehrmacht veteran OS and they chatted (he had broken english) about his serrvice in WW2 and the german was not impressed that my mate was Aussie. We, like our American allies, have a reputation for shooting prisoners. I suspect it stems from our distance from the formal military traditions of the continent. A French or German soldier might expect "one fights hard but when the opponent raises the white flag then the rules of war apply", whereas I can easily imagine an Aussie thinking "ten seconds ago that Jap/Kraut/Turk was machine gunning my mates so cop this". Thats a war crime and I'm sure we are as guilty of it as any other country-in fact more guilty of it than countries with a more formal military tradition.

On the matter of "reputation" the Australians copped some blame for disorder in Singapore and later a lot of rape in Japan. I read (but where is the source? can't recall) an English journalist's diary recording he heard the screams of Japanese women in an occupied town in Japan in 1945 as the Australian occupation troops headed out for an evenings "recreation": the editor noted the date was a month before any Australians arrived in Japan, so it appears some Englishmen were in the habit of blaming British crimes on wild colonials.

Its very shameful to contemplate the alleged cowardice and disorder of Australians at Singapore (specifically deserters throwing women off escaping ships at gunpoint) but most likely it happened and AFAIK we downplay or deflect it in our histories, refuse to aknowledge it or punish the offenders. I actually find it hard to type that last sentence.

As losers the Germans and Japanese and Italians will never receive justice for crimes committed against them in WW2, crimes my country either participated in or applauded eg bombing civilian targets.

I understand Japanese reluctance to accept the western version of WW2 where our crimes are left out: they most likely think why shouldn't they whitewash if we do (and I think we do at least to some extent). I think our American allies do the same, for the same reasons we do.

Germans (writers, historians, tourists I have met, my friends GF) seem to take a great deal more responsibility for their nation's actions in war than any other example I can think of. They are a leading european culture, a major force of western civilisation so their crimes seem more shocking somehow.

The episode of Nazi rule is a lesson to any country that the fall from civilisation to mass murder is a very quick one. All you need are unscrupulous leaders, an economic crisis and an atmosphere of terror.

[drone]

This is where it gets tricky. For example, the biggest indictment against Germany is certainly the concentration camp system, yet only an extraordinarily tiny percentage of German soldiers actually had anything to do with them. IIRC, Treblinka, the site of the killing of nearly 1,000,000 people, was operated by no more than 25 SS officers and 100 guards of mixed nationality. What people often fail to realize is just how few people it took to kill so many, and how much of an effort the Nazis made to hide what they were doing.
So few at the tail end of the disassembly line, but so many more dealing with the infrastructure. The Economic and Administrative Department, General Government, RSHA, various corporations, etc. It takes a lot of logistical planning, organization, and manpower to round up, rob, transfer, rob more invasively, temporarily house, kill (outright, or through starvation/overwork), and dispose of a few million people.


And that gave the Allies carte blanche to dump bombs on civilian centers with the intent of killing and terrorizing many as possible? Again, where is the moral superiority in that?
No, I think the Blitz did that.


Not the race war on the Russian front?
Shhhhh. :quiet: The godless commies don't count, even the planned extermination via starvation of about 25 million of them. And since they only accomplished about half that, it counts as a failure and doesn't advance the notion of German efficiency. No one must know. ~;)

On-topic, for the most part PJ has been arguing that US troops treated Axis troops about the same as the other way around. Probably a fair assessment at the individual level, but I think his moral equivalency argument falls apart due to the treatment of civilians by the armed forces, as well as the organizational acceptance of the war crimes. I'm more interested in this aspect.

[PanzerJaeger]

Not the race war on the Russian front?

You mean the race war inspired in part by America's actions against the indians and British and French colonial policies?


So few at the tail end of the disassembly line, but so many more dealing with the infrastructure. The Economic and Administrative Department, General Government, RSHA, various corporations, etc. It takes a lot of logistical planning, organization, and manpower to round up, rob, transfer, rob more invasively, temporarily house, kill (outright, or through starvation/overwork), and dispose of a few million people.

I think you have to use a bit more specificity when dealing with crimes of such magnitude. Lots of perceived enemies were rounded up and sent to camps during WW2 in both Germany and the US by soldiers who had no real idea what would happen to them and probably didn't care. It was war and they were the enemy. But can you then say that the German private at the beginning of the disassembly line was complicit in the murder of those people? Unknowingly, yes. But there is a reason so few Germans actually spent time at the death camps and why the Nazis made such efforts to keep the final part of the final solution a secret. While standing idly by as the government rounds up your fellow citizens and ships them off to camps during wartime in the name of final victory is certainly immoral (although by that point the Nazis had unquestioned control of the country), it is on a completely different moral level than willfully supporting the gassing of said fellow citizens.



No, I think the Blitz did that.

I think we may have different definitions of moral superiority. To me, moral superiority is not responding to immoral behavior in kind (or in a far greater magnitude). That would be... moral equivalency. :idea2:



Shhhhh. :quiet: The godless commies don't count, even the planned extermination via starvation of about 25 million of them. And since they only accomplished about half that, it counts as a failure and doesn't advance the notion of German efficiency. No one must know. ~;)

The Allies certainly weren’t above forced starvation of POWs. But really, all mocking aside, your statement highlights the point I was making above. German food policy was planned at the highest levels of the Nazi regime. How many German soldiers knew Germany was intentionally thinning out Soviet POWs through starvation and how many simply thought the dangerously thin food rations simply weren’t enough to go around? (they weren’t) And how many on the front lines had any real knowledge of what was going on in the POW camps at all?

Don’t get me wrong. Plenty of German soldiers were involved in war crimes against Russian POWs. It was a barbaric war on both sides. My point is that when generalized statements attributing things to a collective group are more deeply analyzed, often the reality turns out to be different than what was presented. The knowledge and complicity in Nazi war crimes deviated greatly among German soldiers and the German people, but it is a fundamental misconception to assume that the vast majority of Germans had full knowledge of and supported the worst of those policies. There was no free press, no internet, no real way of knowing the full extent of what the government was doing other than what the government told them.



On-topic, for the most part PJ has been arguing that US troops treated Axis troops about the same as the other way around. Probably a fair assessment at the individual level, but I think his moral equivalency argument falls apart due to the treatment of civilians by the armed forces, as well as the organizational acceptance of the war crimes. I'm more interested in this aspect.

Again, I do not understand how one can favorably compare the Allies to the Axis based on their treatment of civilians. There is no question that the massive bombing of German cities was a war crime of epic magnitude. The commander of the Royal Air Force himself stated that the bombing of cities was an intentional targeting of German civilians meant to kill and terrorize as many as possible, not collateral damage from targeting military facilities. Unlike the Holocaust, for example, this widespread, targeted killing of civilians was widely known, accepted, and even celebrated throughout the Allied armed forces and greater populations. They even made movies celebrating the heroics of dropping bombs on defenseless civilians.

The only valid argument supporting your point I have seen in this thread is based on scale. There is certainly no doubt that the scale of Axis crimes was greater than those of the Allies – although not by as much as some here seem to believe.

However, as I’ve said before, I’m just not convinced that scale has as much weight as some here would like. Once the collective group accepts and even celebrates the intentional killing of civilians, does it matter how big the final body count turns out to be from a moral perspective? Does murdering 5 people make one morally superior to someone who murdered 10?

I just don’t view the morality of mass killing as a sliding scale. I see it more as two pieces of land separated by a river and connected by a bridge. Once you cross that bridge, once you knowingly accept that your government is killing innocent people in your name, the body count is just a sad function of the means and length of the killing.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I think we may have different definitions of moral superiority. To me, moral superiority is not responding to immoral behavior in kind (or in a far greater magnitude). That would be... moral equivalency. :idea2:


Again, I do not understand how one can favorably compare the Allies to the Axis based on their treatment of civilians. There is no question that the massive bombing of German cities was a war crime of epic magnitude. The commander of the Royal Air Force himself stated that the bombing of cities was an intentional targeting of German civilians meant to kill and terrorize as many as possible, not collateral damage from targeting military facilities.No, moral equivalence would have been for the allies to stand by and do nothing, instead of stopping these murderers with the means the allies had at their dosposal.



The total civilian victims of the allied bombings stands at some 300/600k Germans. About the number of what the Germans managed in murdered citizens in their best months. The overwhelming amount of bombs were dropped in 1944, when the scale of the German atrocities had become clear.

Total number for Japan is some 300/500k. Again, overwhelmingly in 1944/5.

[Louis VI the Fat]

http://en.allexperts.com/e/h/hi/historical_revisionism_%28negationism%29.htm

[drone]

I think we may have different definitions of moral superiority. To me, moral superiority is not responding to immoral behavior in kind (or in a far greater magnitude). That would be... moral equivalency. :idea2:
I wasn't commenting on the moral superiority of the bombing campaigns, just the direction of the air war started by the Germans. There were no conventions covering the conduct of air warfare, the Allies just followed the leader. Double whammy, really, since the Blitz lost the Luftwaffe the Battle of Britain.


The Allies certainly weren't above forced starvation of POWs. But really, all mocking aside, your statement highlights the point I was making above. German food policy was planned at the highest levels of the Nazi regime. How many German soldiers knew Germany was intentionally thinning out Soviet POWs through starvation and how many simply thought the dangerously thin food rations simply weren't enough to go around? (they weren't) And how many on the front lines had any real knowledge of what was going on in the POW camps at all?

Don't get me wrong. Plenty of German soldiers were involved in war crimes against Russian POWs. It was a barbaric war on both sides. My point is that when generalized statements attributing things to a collective group are more deeply analyzed, often the reality turns out to be different than what was presented. The knowledge and complicity in Nazi war crimes deviated greatly among German soldiers and the German people, but it is a fundamental misconception to assume that the vast majority of Germans had full knowledge of and supported the worst of those policies. There was no free press, no internet, no real way of knowing the full extent of what the government was doing other than what the government told them.
I wasn't talking about Russian POWs. Soviet citizens were to be starved from occupied lands through food management. ATPG might think the way I do about it. The brutality between the armies on both sides in the East is fairly well known, and the Holocaust has better PR, but in terms of scale the Slav civilians caught the brunt of it.




Again, I do not understand how one can favorably compare the Allies to the Axis based on their treatment of civilians. There is no question that the massive bombing of German cities was a war crime of epic magnitude. The commander of the Royal Air Force himself stated that the bombing of cities was an intentional targeting of German civilians meant to kill and terrorize as many as possible, not collateral damage from targeting military facilities. Unlike the Holocaust, for example, this widespread, targeted killing of civilians was widely known, accepted, and even celebrated throughout the Allied armed forces and greater populations. They even made movies celebrating the heroics of dropping bombs on defenseless civilians.
See my first.


The only valid argument supporting your point I have seen in this thread is based on scale. There is certainly no doubt that the scale of Axis crimes was greater than those of the Allies – although not by as much as some here seem to believe.

However, as I’ve said before, I’m just not convinced that scale has as much weight as some here would like. Once the collective group accepts and even celebrates the intentional killing of civilians, does it matter how big the final body count turns out to be from a moral perspective? Does murdering 5 people make one morally superior to someone who murdered 10?

I just don’t view the morality of mass killing as a sliding scale. I see it more as two pieces of land separated by a river and connected by a bridge. Once you cross that bridge, once you knowingly accept that your government is killing innocent people in your name, the body count is just a sad function of the means and length of the killing.
Scale matters a lot, since large scale generally means there is an organizational and institutional approval of the deed.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I wasn't talking about Russian POWs. Soviet citizens were to be starved from occupied lands through food management. ATPG might think the way I do about it. The brutality between the armies on both sides in the East is fairly well known, and the Holocaust has better PR, but in terms of scale the Slav civilians caught the brunt of it.

That's what I was getting at. To my knowledge only Germany fought a campaign whose purpose was one of ethnic cleansing (though Japan's actions in China are pretty horrific and may have been very deliberate; I am unfamiliar with it). German conduct (both SS and Whermacht) on the Eastern Front went way beyond shooting POWs (or not taking prisoners).

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I wasn't commenting on the moral superiority of the bombing campaigns, just the direction of the air war started by the Germans. There were no conventions covering the conduct of air warfare, the Allies just followed the leader. Double whammy, really, since the Blitz lost the Luftwaffe the Battle of Britain....

They lost the Battle of Britain by bothering to fight it at all. Total waste of resources and the death of many skilled aircrew to achieve more or less nothing. Even if they had won hands down, shattering the RAF, they would have achieved nothing strategically. Pointless vanity by Goering as near as I can figure it.


PJ:

Neither side treated civilians appropriately according to modern expectations of combatants. That having been acknowledged, it simply isn't accurate to stack the often programmatic efforts of the Germans against that of the Western Allies.

Did we bomb civilians? Yes, as had the Germans. In the first days of the war, the UK bombed Germany....with leaflets. The Germans bombed Warsaw, to scare the Poles into quitting. They would do the same in Rotterdam 9 months later. They had done the same in 1937 at Guernica. All three attacks were carried out despite the Luftwaffe's official stance opposing the terror bombing theory of Douhet.

More later

[Brenus]

“I appreciate the depth such anecdotal commentary brings to the discussion, but I'm not sure it makes much of a point. I can produce accounts of Allied soldiers witnessing Allied crimes”
PJ, you should have check who is August Von Kageneck:
Brother of Erbo von Kagueneck (Luftwaffe, 67 victories, Oak Leaves to Knights Cross) and Clemens-Heinrich Graf von Kageneck(1913-2005), Panzer commander, Oak Leaves to Knights Cross.
Nephew of Von Papen.

Books:
Lieutenant de Panzers (Lieutenant in the Panzers)
Examen de conscience: nous étions vaincus mais nous nous croyions innocents (Conscience examine: we were vanquish but we believed we were innocents)
La guerre à l’Est (War in the East)
Lieutenant sous la tête de mort (Lieutenant under the Death Head)
De la Croix de Fer à la potence: Roland von Hoesslin, un officier allemand (From the Iron Cross to the Gallows: Roland von Hoesslin, a German Officer).

So I do think that his writings are more than anecdotes:yes:

[Horatius]

Most war crimes by both sides went unpunished, but the German war crimes do outnumber allied and are on a much higher scale. At least German and Allied soldiers usually treated each other well (which is why the Germans flocked to surrender to the western allies at wars end), but remember the Eastern front? I don't think I need to elaborate further.

[PanzerJaeger]

The overwhelming amount of bombs were dropped in 1944, when the scale of the German atrocities had become clear.

Are you attempting to make the case that the buildup in Allied bombing from earlier years to '44 was a response to - or even had anything to do with - German atrocities? That runs counter to everything I've read on the subject, which maintains that said buildup was a function of Allied production capacity and the Luftwaffe's ability to resist. Either you've uncovered some shocking new information, or I'm going to have to call this a clear example of negationism (http://en.allexperts.com/e/h/hi/historical_revisionism_%28negationism%29.htm).


Total number for Japan is some 300/500k. Again, overwhelmingly in 1944/5.

So, using your own numbers, the Allies killed between 600,000 and 1,100,000 civilians just through the bombing of civilians centers in Germany and Japan and not counting the bombing of Italy, the killing of POWs and surrendering soldiers, or anything else. That's what you're defending so adamently? :inquisitive:


http://en.allexperts.com/e/h/hi/hist...tionism%29.htm

I don't appreciate the implications. I'm not the one trying desperately to explain away the intentional targeting and murder of millions of civilians. I'm not the one justifying unjustifiable war crimes. I'm not the denier in this discussion.



I wasn't talking about Russian POWs. Soviet citizens were to be starved from occupied lands through food management. ATPG might think the way I do about it. The brutality between the armies on both sides in the East is fairly well known, and the Holocaust has better PR, but in terms of scale the Slav civilians caught the brunt of it.


Of course. Not sure why I went off on a tangent about POWs... was trying to pay attention to a lecture at the same time. Anyway, my comment applies to the Russian civilians as well.


Scale matters a lot, since large scale generally means there is an organizational and institutional approval of the deed.

That applies to the Allies as well. Would you agree that there was certainly organizational and institutional approval of destroying large civilian centers? I don't think Harris' words can be interpreted any other way.


They lost the Battle of Britain by bothering to fight it at all. Total waste of resources and the death of many skilled aircrew to achieve more or less nothing. Even if they had won hands down, shattering the RAF, they would have achieved nothing strategically. Pointless vanity by Goering as near as I can figure it.

It was meant to gain air superiority in preparation for Operation Sea Lion.


Neither side treated civilians appropriately according to modern expectations of combatants. That having been acknowledged, it simply isn't accurate to stack the often programmatic efforts of the Germans against that of the Western Allies.
You wouldn't say that the Allied bombing was a programmatic effort with the expressed intention of killing civilians?


PJ, you should have check who is August Von Kageneck:
So I do think that his writings are more than anecdotes.

I am aware of who he is, but his recollections are one set out of tens of millions.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...It was meant to gain air superiority in preparation for Operation Sea Lion.

Bollocks. The Germans made virtually no preparation whatsoever for anything resembling an invasion of England. Hitler was, at best, lukewarm about the whole idea. The aerial bombardment, coupled with low morale following France, was supposed to bring England to the negotiating table.

There never was going to be a Sea Lion, and it could never have been successful had one been staged. Absolutely nothing in the figures on sealift, naval covering forces, etc. give any hope for a sustained effort by Germany following an amphibious strike. Total pipe dream.

The Germans badly under-estimated England's will to resist and wasted a ridiculous number of pilots from what was probably the premier tactical support air force in existence at the time (better even than the USMC who pioneered the close support stuff).

[Seamus Fermanagh]

...You wouldn't say that the Allied bombing was a programmatic effort with the expressed intention of killing civilians?

The aerial bombardment of Germany was specifically designed to kill as many Germans as possible. We didn't think it would break their will to resist, we wanted them to die. If we killed enough of them and broke or disrupted enough of their infrastructure, then maybe they wouldn't be able to fight so effectively. We were every bit the coterie of heartless murderers they were and have no right to take a moral high ground approach on anything aside from the Holocaust. We also did it a heck of a lot better than they did and killed scads more of them then they did us.

On the other hand, we didn't start the killing -- they did. We were not the first to expressly target civilians in that war -- they were. What we did was classic tit-for-tat, a system of behaviorial response that has worked effectively for a few millenia. So if you accept reciprocity as a valid response, then you shouldn't have a problem with what happened. If you don't then you always will. You burden either way.

Why do you always push it with WWII Germany, PJ? Is there something about you that revels in all of us having a moral equivalence to that regime of sick, twisted fucks? Ultimately, we simply don't. I guess for me the real core issue of the whole thing is pretty simple. That regime was evil and its leaders and key supporters knowingly did evil. The Allies did some horrific things in pursuit of a larger and more worthwhile goal. Does the end justify the means? Sadly, sometimes, it does.

[Horatius]

The aerial bombardment of Germany was specifically designed to kill as many Germans as possible. We didn't think it would break their will to resist, we wanted them to die. If we killed enough of them and broke or disrupted enough of their infrastructure, then maybe they wouldn't be able to fight so effectively. We were every bit the coterie of heartless murderers they were and have no right to take a moral high ground approach on anything aside from the Holocaust. We also did it a heck of a lot better than they did and killed scads more of them then they did us.

On the other hand, we didn't start the killing -- they did. We were not the first to expressly target civilians in that war -- they were. What we did was classic tit-for-tat, a system of behaviorial response that has worked effectively for a few millenia. So if you accept reciprocity as a valid response, then you shouldn't have a problem with what happened. If you don't then you always will. You burden either way.

Why do you always push it with WWII Germany, PJ? Is there something about you that revels in all of us having a moral equivalence to that regime of sick, twisted fucks? Ultimately, we simply don't. I guess for me the real core issue of the whole thing is pretty simple. That regime was evil and its leaders and key supporters knowingly did evil. The Allies did some horrific things in pursuit of a larger and more worthwhile goal. Does the end justify the means? Sadly, sometimes, it does.

RaF, and USAF targetted German Military Infrastructure Industrial production, Oil Production, and other essentials for warfare. It is unfortunate that all of those happened to be housed in German cities, and the smart bomb wasn't invented yet. The allies needed to harm German factories. Today it would be a war crime, but back then it wasn't.

The German Airforce at first did the same thing, and the RaF was very nearly destroyed by non stop air raids. Hitler ironically saved the RaF by switching the order from military and other infrastructure to just killing Britons. It was when the population instead of the RaF became the target that the Battle of Britain was won.

We can't take the absolute morale high ground, but we could say that what we did was required to win the war, and that arguably the ends justify the means because the nazis donated their name to meaning an ultimate evil for a reason, and Germany was fighting to at least take over large portions of the world in the name of racial purity.

[PanzerJaeger]

Bollocks. The Germans made virtually no preparation whatsoever for anything resembling an invasion of England. Hitler was, at best, lukewarm about the whole idea. The aerial bombardment, coupled with low morale following France, was supposed to bring England to the negotiating table.

There never was going to be a Sea Lion, and it could never have been successful had one been staged. Absolutely nothing in the figures on sealift, naval covering forces, etc. give any hope for a sustained effort by Germany following an amphibious strike. Total pipe dream.

The Germans badly under-estimated England's will to resist and wasted a ridiculous number of pilots from what was probably the premier tactical support air force in existence at the time (better even than the USMC who pioneered the close support stuff).

You have to separate your opinion about the success of a possible invasion from the fact that an invasion was planned. Hitler issued Directive No. 16 and preparations were made at every level of the German military. Gaining air superiority in preparation for Sea Lion was the purpose of the Luftwaffe operations during the battle.


The aerial bombardment of Germany was specifically designed to kill as many Germans as possible. We didn't think it would break their will to resist, we wanted them to die. If we killed enough of them and broke or disrupted enough of their infrastructure, then maybe they wouldn't be able to fight so effectively. We were every bit the coterie of heartless murderers they were and have no right to take a moral high ground approach on anything aside from the Holocaust. We also did it a heck of a lot better than they did and killed scads more of them then they did us.


Thank you. Acceptance of reality is all that can be expected.


Why do you always push it with WWII Germany, PJ?
I don't understand the attitude of moral superiority. I mean, why were the British fighting the Japanese half way across the world in the first place? Think about that one...

[Brenus]

“his recollections are one set out of tens of millions” No. His analyse based on his knowledge of the Wehrmacht (and his own experience) was the first step of a new approach of the Nazi War Machine.
Before him it was the bad SS and the good Heer. Now, and he was the first to say it, the Nazi Machine was good at implicating every level of the society in segmenting and diffusing the responsibilities…
So each level could ignore the reality in denying the ultimate goal. The Jews extermination was “ignored” by the generals because done by the “political” SS.
Again, I will not explain how the Nazi succeeded to do so, but even the guy throwing the Zyclon B in the Gaz chamber didn’t feel guilty as he was just part of the machine.
Von Kageneck was the first one who show this was working within the Heer, how the Nazi succeeded to impose the notion of the “brutal” war, the “merciless” war even to the older/imperial Junkers officers.
And his findings are safer than interview of 1,000 war veterans, especially when I don’t know how it was done, as for me, it looks like the man who saw the man who saw the man who saw the bear, and he had no fear…

[Pannonian]

On the other hand, we didn't start the killing -- they did. We were not the first to expressly target civilians in that war -- they were. What we did was classic tit-for-tat, a system of behaviorial response that has worked effectively for a few millenia. So if you accept reciprocity as a valid response, then you shouldn't have a problem with what happened. If you don't then you always will. You burden either way.


"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."

[Brenus]

why were the British fighting the Japanese half way across the world in the first place?
Erm, because they were attacked?

[Louis VI the Fat]

The aerial bombardment of Germany was specifically designed to kill as many Germans as possible. We didn't think it would break their will to resist, we wanted them to die. If we killed enough of them and broke or disrupted enough of their infrastructure, then maybe they wouldn't be able to fight so effectively. We were every bit the coterie of heartless murderers they were and have no right to take a moral high ground approach on anything aside from the Holocaust. We also did it a heck of a lot better than they did and killed scads more of them then they did us.

On the other hand, we didn't start the killing -- they did. We were not the first to expressly target civilians in that war -- they were. What we did was classic tit-for-tat, a system of behaviorial response that has worked effectively for a few millenia. So if you accept reciprocity as a valid response, then you shouldn't have a problem with what happened. If you don't then you always will. You burden either way.No, I'm afraid I must disagree with all this, except for the bit pointing out cause and effect.


What of the allied bombings and destruction of Caen, Le Havre, Strasbourg? Were they intended to kill as many civilians as possible, or did they serve a military purpose? Perhaps the world forgets that most of the fighting did not take place in Germany and Japan, that citizens in other countries were bombed too, not just by Axis, but by the allies. This is what happens with total war.

It is not just the Holocaust. What of the destruction of Poland? The scorched earth tactic by the advancing German army in the Soviet Union? The slave camps, the slave labour. The million other crimes?

We did not kill as many of them as they killed of ours. The total number of Axis civilian deaths is some 1.5 to 2.5 million. The total number of Allied civilian deaths is some 30-40 million.

[PanzerJaeger]

why were the British fighting the Japanese half way across the world in the first place?
Erm, because they were attacked?

Allow me to rephrase. Why were the British available to be attacked in Asia? Why were they and the French and the Americans there?

[Strike For The South]

Allow me to rephrase. Why were the British available to be attacked in Asia? Why were they and the French and the Americans there?

Becuze were naughty little imperialists.

You have shown me the light

~;)

[Pannonian]

why were the British fighting the Japanese half way across the world in the first place?
Erm, because they were attacked?

Don't forget the nasty imperialistic Chinese who were brutally oppressing the poor folk of Manchuria before the light of Japan drove them off and brought peace and prosperity to the grateful Manchurians. Later, Japan similarly liberated the good folk of Nanjing. Nazi Germany had a knack of picking morally pure allies.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I'm not sure the liberal West has the moral highground on the imperialistic front. Poland under Prussia/Germany, or Algeria under French rule - there is an extent to which the former was considered the graver uncivilised act because it dealt with white Europeans.

It's good that anti-racists point out this hypocrisy.



Not that the mere fact of being imperialistic means that there is moral equivalence between all empires and all forms of imperialism. One would end up equating the wholesale slaughter of entire nations with the brutal oppression by the English of Scotland. (Not that the SNP would disagree there's a difference....)

[PanzerJaeger]

Becuze were naughty little imperialists.

You have shown me the light

~;)

Clever fellow. And how would you describe an argument claiming the moral superiority of one group of empires that based their conquests on racial superiority and native suppression fighting against another group of nations trying to establish empires based on the same principles? I'll give you a hint, it starts with an h.

[Sarmatian]

Allow me to rephrase. Why were the British available to be attacked in Asia? Why were they and the French and the Americans there?

Oooooh, PJ's taking out the big guns. I'm gonna get some popcorns...

[Pannonian]

Clever fellow. And how would you describe an argument claiming the moral superiority of one group of empires that based their conquests on racial superiority and native suppression fighting against another group of nations trying to establish empires based on the same principles? I'll give you a hint, it starts with an h.

Hextermination? After all, that's what the Nazis were reviled for, the attempt to eradicate other peoples. Even the Japanese didn't try that, although they contributed their own brand of extreme mass cruelty. But the Nazis, AFAIK, are alone in history in trying to cleanse this planet of certain peoples. That's what makes them the vilest ideology ever to walk this earth.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Hextermination? After all, that's what the Nazis were reviled for, the attempt to eradicate other peoples. Even the Japanese didn't try that, although they contributed their own brand of extreme mass cruelty. But the Nazis, AFAIK, are alone in history in trying to cleanse this planet of certain peoples. That's what makes them the vilest ideology ever to walk this earth.http://www.australianexplorer.com/australian_history.htm

[Megas Methuselah]

http://www.australianexplorer.com/australian_history.htm

Don't forget Newfoundland, among many others. Here's to your success, Louis: cheers.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Hextermination? After all, that's what the Nazis were reviled for, the attempt to eradicate other peoples. Even the Japanese didn't try that, although they contributed their own brand of extreme mass cruelty. But the Nazis, AFAIK, are alone in history in trying to cleanse this planet of certain peoples. That's what makes them the vilest ideology ever to walk this earth.

Not alone, sadly. Though most of the other examples would be tribal-style situations in the manner of Rwanda. Depending on your definition of extermination, some would include Serbian efforts in the Balkans during the last part of the 20th.

Nazi Germany stands alone, however, as the epitome of evil for its fiendish efficiency and horrifying committment to its genocidal goals. A modern "civilized" state harnessing a ridiculous portion of its capability for the purpose of eliminating whole groups of people simply because of their ethnic/genetic background. Pannonian, you are quite correct that this makes their ideology the vilest. Imperialism, for all its manifold faults and inherent racist attitude, was an attempt at political and economic domination and not eradication.

PJ: You should remind yourself that Germany played the "White Man's Burden" game just as assiduously as any other European power, so even if you accept the premise that Imperialism is somehow morally equivalent to planned genocide -- which I emphatically do not -- the Germans were no better than anyone else. They simply got a late start since functional unification did not occur until after the 1867 war.

Louis:

My comments on the "more effective killers" referred to the aerial campaign only. Germany's murderous efforts across the board far eclipsed the allies (at least if you discount Stalins efforts against his own people).

[Sarmatian]

some would include Serbian efforts in the Balkans during the last part of the 20th.

Must...resist...the...urge... The lure of the dark side is strong... Help me Obi-Wan, you're my only hope...

Seriously, nothing that happened in Yugoslavia comes even close, both in scale and severity, to WW2 atrocities. And this is rather recent and political, not historical yet, it belongs in the Backroom not the Monastery. So give yourself an infraction, go to your room and think about what you have just done.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Sarmatian, Seamus merely writes that depending on one's definition, some would include Serbian efforts in the 1990's as genocide. However that may be - nobody, I think, is interested in rehashing all of that here - the point of his post, is that this is not comparable with the efforts of the Nazis in scale and severity.



~~o~~o~~<<oOo>>~~o~~o~~



A lot of controversial subjects are touched upon in this thread. Quite unavoidably so, considering the subject. Modern German, Russian, British, American, French and Serbian history is explored here, sometimes in a very critical manner. There has to be leeway for controversial contemporary subjects, or we couldn't explore this fascinating topic.


Hmm...I was writing something elaborate here, but I just deleted it and instead I will write: Many would argue French neo-imperialist efforts played an unsavoury part in the events in Rwanda (http://allafrica.com/stories/201002260114.html) in the 1990's. Depending on one's definitions, some would say 'bears responsibility for genocide'.

If you catch my drift. ~;)

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Sarmatian, Seamus merely writes that depending on one's definition, some would include Serbian efforts in the 1990's as genocide. However that may be - nobody, I think, is interested in rehashing all of that here - the point of his post, is that this is not comparable with the efforts of the Nazis in scale and severity.

Louis is very accurately summarizing my position.

The scale, scope, and programmatic character of what occurred in the Balkans in the last decade of the 20th century was nowhere even remotely close to those perpetrated by the Nazis. While I noted that some choose to label those events genocide, I phrased it so as to indicate that that characterization was debatable. While it is obvious that some rather nasty events occurred, I am not sure that it was genocidal in character.

[Brenus]

“one group of empires that based their conquests on racial superiority and native suppression fighting against another group of nations trying to establish empires based on the same principles?”
Except as much I know, at least for the Second French Empire, the expansion was never based on this. It started to compensate the lost of Alsace Lorraine and the need of raw material and manpower for the Revanche.
All you describe came after, the duty of the white man and all others reason given to keep the Empire.
And perhaps it will sound familiar but as for Indochina, the French went to rescue Religious Minorities that were oppressed by a horrible tyrant. So they went to free the population from the Emperor of Hue Tu Duc in 1884…

Now, here what the People in charge were thinking:

“The Chinese is a thief and the Japanese an assassin; The Annamite both. This said, I highly recognise that these 3 races had virtues unknown to Europe and civilisation more advanced than our occidental civilisations. It would be convenient to us, masters of these populations, to win at least by our morality. I would be nice that we would, us, the colons, nor assassins or thieves. But this is a utopia.
To the unanimous eyes of the French Nation, the colonies get the reputation to be the last resort and the supreme asylum for all the outcasts from all the classes and from justice.
We host here the scum and the useless, the scroungers and the gate-crushers….
The ones that plant in Indo-China didn’t know to harvest in France; those who interchange were bankrupted; those who command to the literate Mandarins were the dry fruits of the Schools; and those who judge and sentence were sometimes judged and sentenced. After this, none can be surprised that in this country, the Western man is morally inferior to the Asiatic…
I saw, in this colonial plebe, so scorned, some valuable individuals.
To these, the surrounding and the climate were valuable.
They live on the edge of our too conventional life.
The birth of this kind of men is only possible in this Indo-China, so old and very new at the same time…”

[PanzerJaeger]

Comparisons between America's expansion westward and Germany's planned expansion eastward bear a striking resemblance to each other in attitudes, actions, and results. I found the BIA's own view of its history interesting.


In March of 1824, President James Monroe established the Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of War. Its mission was to conduct the nation's business with regard to Indian affairs. We have come together today to mark the first 175 years of the institution now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

It is appropriate that we do so in the first year of a new century and a new millennium, a time when our leaders are reflecting on what lies ahead and preparing for those challenges. Before looking ahead, though, this institution must first look back and reflect on what it has wrought and, by doing so, come to know that this is no occasion for celebration; rather it is time for reflection and contemplation, a time for sorrowful truths to be spoken, a time for contrition.

We must first reconcile ourselves to the fact that the works of this agency have at various times profoundly harmed the communities it was meant to serve. From the very beginning, the Office of Indian Affairs was an instrument by which the United States enforced its ambition against the Indian nations and Indian people who stood in its path. And so, the first mission of this institution was to execute the removal of the southeastern tribal nations. By threat, deceit, and force, these great tribal nations were made to march 1,000 miles to the west, leaving thousands of their old, their young and their infirm in hasty graves along the Trail of Tears.

As the nation looked to the West for more land, this agency participated in the ethnic cleansing that befell the western tribes. War necessarily begets tragedy; the war for the West was no exception. Yet in these more enlightened times, it must be acknowledged that the deliberate spread of disease, the decimation of the mighty bison herds, the use of the poison alcohol to destroy mind and body, and the cowardly killing of women and children made for tragedy on a scale so ghastly that it cannot be dismissed as merely the inevitable consequence of the clash of competing ways of life. This agency and the good people in it failed in the mission to prevent the devastation. And so great nations of patriot warriors fell. We will never push aside the memory of unnecessary and violent death at places such as Sand Creek, the banks of the Washita River, and Wounded Knee.

Nor did the consequences of war have to include the futile and destructive efforts to annihilate Indian cultures. After the devastation of tribal economies and the deliberate creation of tribal dependence on the services provided by this agency, this agency set out to destroy all things Indian.

This agency forbade the speaking of Indian languages, prohibited the conduct of traditional religious activities, outlawed traditional government, and made Indian people ashamed of who they were. Worst of all, the Bureau of Indian Affairs committed these acts against the children entrusted to its boarding schools, brutalizing them emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually. Even in this era of self -determination, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs is at long last serving as an advocate for Indian people in an atmosphere of mutual respect, the legacy of these misdeeds haunts us. The trauma of shame, fear and anger has passed from one generation to the next, and manifests itself in the rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence that plague Indian country .Many of our people live lives of unrelenting tragedy as Indian families suffer the ruin of lives by alcoholism, suicides made of shame and despair, and violent death at the hands of one another. So many of the maladies suffered today in Indian country result from the failures of this agency. Poverty, ignorance, and disease have been the product of this agency's work.

And so today I stand before you as the leader of an institution that in the past has committed acts so terrible that they infect, diminish, and destroy the lives of Indian people decades later, generations later. These things occurred despite the efforts of many good people with good hearts who sought to prevent them. These wrongs must be acknowledged if the healing is to begin.

I do not speak today for the United States. That is the province of the nation's elected leaders, and I would not presume to speak on their behalf. I am empowered, however, to speak on behalf of this agency, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and I am quite certain that the words that follow reflect the hearts of its 10,000 employees.

Let us begin by expressing our profound sorrow for what this agency has done in the past. Just like you, when we think of these misdeeds and their tragic consequences, our hearts break and our grief is as pure and complete as yours. We desperately wish that we could change this history, but of course we cannot. On behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I extend this formal apology to Indian people for the historical conduct of this agency.

And while the BIA employees of today did not commit these wrongs, we acknowledge that the institution we serve did. We accept this inheritance, this legacy of racism and inhumanity. And by accepting this legacy, we accept also the moral responsibility of putting things right.

We therefore begin this important work anew, and make a new commitment to the people and communities that we serve, a commitment born of the dedication we share with you to the cause of renewed hope and prosperity for Indian country. Never again will this agency stand silent when hate and violence are committed against Indians. Never again will we allow policy to proceed from the assumption that Indians possess less human genius than the other races. Never again will we be complicit in the theft of Indian property. Never again will we appoint false leaders who serve purposes other than those of the tribes. Never again will we allow unflattering and stereotypical images of Indian people to deface the halls of government or lead the American people to shallow and ignorant beliefs about Indians. Never again will we attack your religions, your languages, your rituals, or any of your tribal ways. Never again will we seize your children, nor teach them to be ashamed of who they are. Never again.

We cannot yet ask your forgiveness, not while the burdens of this agency's history weigh so heavily on tribal communities. What we do ask is that, together, we allow the healing to begin: As you return to your homes, and as you talk with your people, please tell them that time of dying is at its end. Tell your children that the time of shame and fear is over. Tell your young men and women to replace their anger with hope and love for their people. Together, we must wipe the tears of seven generations. Together, we must allow our broken hearts to mend. Together, we will face a challenging world with confidence and trust. Together, let us resolve that when our future leaders gather to discuss the history of this institution, it will be time to celebrate the rebirth of joy, freedom, and progress for the Indian Nations. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was born in 1824 in a time of war on Indian people. May it live in the year 2000 and beyond as an instrument of their prosperity.

Remarks of Kevin Gover,
Assistant Secretary-Indian Affairs
Department of the Interior at the
Ceremony Acknowledging the 175th Anniversary
of the Establishment of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs
September 8, 2000

[Louis VI the Fat]

History is not one big blur, where every wrong is equal to another, or easily compared. It is commonly accepted that all (modern, big, western) countries have a warmongering past. Few ever hold anything against the Third Reich with a claim of complete innocence of their own past.

Events must be seen in their full historical light, not compared by resemblances alone. One does not compare the Germanic expansion in the fourth and fifth centuries with the quest for Lebensraum in the twentieth. One will end up like those confused anarcho-communists who maintain that the Berlin Wall was as trivial a wrong as the wall in the Arizona desert. Both are walls meant to stop people etc.


Me, I maintain that the greatest crime ever committed by mankind was my very own ancestor, Ugh the Cro Magnon cavepainter of Lascaux, who genocided an entire human species by killing the last neandertal.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

History is not one big blur, where every wrong is equal to another, or easily compared. It is commonly accepted that all (modern, big, western) countries have a warmongering past. Few ever hold anything against the Third Reich with a claim of complete innocence of their own past.

Events must be seen in their full historical light, not compared by resemblances alone. One does not compare the Germanic expansion in the fourth and fifth centuries with the quest for Lebensraum in the twentieth. One will end up like those confused anarcho-communists who maintain that the Berlin Wall was as trivial a wrong as the wall in the Arizona desert. Both are walls meant to stop people etc.


Me, I maintain that the greatest crime ever committed by mankind was my very own ancestor, Ugh the Cro Magnon cavepainter of Lascaux, who genocided an entire human species by killing the last neandertal.

Nice one Louis -- but you know the paleo records don't fully support that hypothesis. Like most species extinctions, there were probably a small host of factors.


PJ:

We did the Amerinds a dis-service. Having conquered them, we should never have left them any land. Instead, forced assimilation should have been required. Many rich tribal cultures would have become a thing of the past, but at least I wouldn't be losing my shirt at one of their casinos.

[rotorgun]

A very fascinating 7 pages of reading gentlemen. I offer the following along the moral side of this argument to consider: "he who is merciful unto the Cruel will eventually be cruel unto the Merciful" (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:16). I can't remember the name of which person who said "To show mercy to your enemy during war is the height of folly", but it is apt. If one takes a legal point of view than the killing of an enemy who has surrendered, or in the act of surrendering is wrong. If one looks at it dispassionately though, it an unfortunate byproduct of war. I daresay even God himself views it so.

I quote General Robert E. Lee "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow to fond of it". Many of the combatants of the WWII from every country committed murder of POWs at various times; from the SS to the headhunters of Borneo. As for wanton killing of civilians; from the Rape of Nanking to the Rape of Berlin, from Rotterdam to the fire bombing of Japan such acts occurred on such a vast scale as to astonish the mind. The only good thing about war is it's expeditious ending. That's why Sun Tzu claimed that "War is of vital concern to the state."...something Japan and Germany should have thought deeply about before allowing themselves to be deceived by the militarists and demagogues.

PS: Hi everyone! I missed you guys!

[KrooK]

I can mention other war crime.
When Americans liberated Dachau they killed 300 poor guardians (and some dogs - bloody bastards) - just poor soldiers executing (or rather poisoning :) ) their orders. Poor Germans, we all regret them.
All modern hippies should put these bloody Americans on trial.
We can't regret Germans during world war II. They started war and massive killing - they got what they wanted.

http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plik:Dachau_execution_coalyard_1945-04-29.jpg&filetimestamp=20051121135904

[al Roumi]

A very fascinating 7 pages of reading gentlemen. I offer the following along the moral side of this argument to consider: "he who is merciful unto the Cruel will eventually be cruel unto the Merciful" (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:16). I can't remember the name of which person who said "To show mercy to your enemy during war is the height of folly", but it is apt. If one takes a legal point of view than the killing of an enemy who has surrendered, or in the act of surrendering is wrong. If one looks at it dispassionately though, it an unfortunate byproduct of war. I daresay even God himself views it so.

Well thank god (ha) we do have laws to make the killing of a surrendered enemy unlawful. IMO, your biblical quotation is an excellent example of how religion or any ideology can be used to justify many a heinous act.

While we are in the business of quotations:

"And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend. " Saadi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadi_(poet))

[rotorgun]

Well thank god (ha) we do have laws to make the killing of a surrendered enemy unlawful. IMO, your biblical quotation is an excellent example of how religion or any ideology can be used to justify many a heinous act.

While we are in the business of quotations:

"And bring not all mischief you are able to upon an enemy, for he may one day become your friend. " Saadi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadi_(poet))

Dear me, I really didn't intend such an interpretation to be surmised, for I am passionately on the side of the law. I was merely trying to point out that the brutality of war is part and parcel with the act of making war. I also feel that sometimes there might be circumstances that bring out this vengeful nature in man, and that there may be some who are killed who deserve it. I am very impressed with your counter quotation, an excellent counterpoint indeed. I should like to add another for consideration.

War is hell! General Sherman

PS: I hope you took notice of the second paragraph of my previous post; one could argue that Japan and Germany did much to reap the whirlwind they sowed.

[al Roumi]

Dear me, I really didn't intend such an interpretation to be surmised, for I am passionately on the side of the law. I was merely trying to point out that the brutality of war is part and parcel with the act of making war. I also feel that sometimes there might be circumstances that bring out this vengeful nature in man, and that there may be some who are killed who deserve it. I am very impressed with your counter quotation, an excellent counterpoint indeed. I should like to add another for consideration.

War is hell! General Sherman

PS: I hope you took notice of the second paragraph of my previous post; one could argue that Japan and Germany did much to reap the whirlwind they sowed.

I did read your second paragraph but the first was so strong I'm afraid I felt compeled to respond to it particularily. The horrific ease by which religion or ideology can be used to justify -or rationalise, any number of atrocities is terrifying.

[Karl08]

I can mention other war crime.
We can't regret Germans during world war II. They started war and massive killing - they got what they wanted.

Reaped what they sowed, yes, but got what they wanted? Hardly. And just because you can expect the defeated party to be treated harshly, doesn't necessarily make it right. In many cases it's understandable, and in some cases one might say well deserved. But one cannot generalize.

Anyway, the Allies aren't entirely blameless for the war, you know. The Germans were themselves after revenge for the extremely punitive conditions of the Versailles treaty. That's what made it easy for Hitler to make the Germans crave a rematch.

[Sarmatian]

Anyway, the Allies aren't entirely blameless for the war, you know. The Germans were themselves after revenge for the extremely punitive conditions of the Versailles treaty. That's what made it easy for Hitler to make the Germans crave a rematch.

Might I refer you to the excellent thread (https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?126448-Treaty-of-Versailles-Modern-Reappraisal) where treaty of Versailles has already been discussed.

[Karl08]

We did not kill as many of them as they killed of ours. The total number of Axis civilian deaths is some 1.5 to 2.5 million. The total number of Allied civilian deaths is some 30-40 million.
No matter how you break down those numbers, they are wrong. It seems that all of the civilians perished in the Holocaust are automatically lumped in the "Allied civilians" category. If you want to argue that they shouldn't be counted among Axis civilians because they were killed by the Axis, fine, but then what about the millions of Russian civilians killed by Stalin? It's a bit inconsistent.



And thanks for the pointer, Sarmatian.

[PanzerJaeger]

No matter how you break down those numbers, they are wrong. It seems that all of the civilians perished in the Holocaust are automatically lumped in the "Allied civilians" category. If you want to argue that they shouldn't be counted among Axis civilians because they were killed by the Axis, fine, but then what about the millions of Russian civilians killed by Stalin? It's a bit inconsistent.


Those numbers are pure fantasy, at least in relation to the point that they are being used to make. Not only do they include millions of deaths not at all attributable to the Axis nations, such as those killed in Soviet gulags as well as communist and nationalist repression in China; those alleged deaths that can be attributed to the Axis are speculative at best. The vast majority of "Allied civilian deaths" are from Russia and China. The estimates for the Russian deaths vary by a degree of tens of millions depending on the source being considered, and have consistently been scaled downward from earlier claims. As for the claims of Chinese dead, much less the actual causes of said deaths, they barely register as educated guesses.

[Brenus]

“Those numbers are pure fantasy, at least in relation to the point that they are being used to make”: Yeap, figures are not exact. It was exaggerated for propaganda purpose in both sides.
But amazingly enough, not in what some could expect.
The Russian atrocities or the Allies “killing”, as the figures for Dresden, are going down, and the Nazi victims are going up with the “recent” discovery or the extermination without camps (in former USSR).
A French Catholic Priest is actually doing an excellent job en the Baltic States in discovering new mass graves, which were covered-up by and to the Soviets for various reasons…
However, Stalin probably killed more Russian than Hitler on a longest period but there is no reason to take some blame of Hitler for being less successful.
But again, no real figures are actually available so we’ve got the so-called Holodomor (genocide or just the communist version of the Irish famine 1845-1852) Bad government or Cruel Government? At least, Ireland was still exporting food when the Irish were dying…
We do know that Stalin executed the ones he ordered to surrender in 1941 as they were witnesses of his mistakes and put the blame on Germany. But it is a small amount comparing the Russian POW victims of the Nazi.
We can mégoter or pinailler (French for arguing about figures or fact that doesn’t make really a difference) about how much of the Chinese were victims of the Civil War between the Nationalists and the Communists, however, the rape of Nankin and the bombing campaign against the Chinese towns were Japanese.

Some less important nations were forgotten in the count for the axis victims e.g. the Vietnamese or the Forced Indigenous Labour on the River Kwai railways sites.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I'd like to put a little different spin on this if I might.

You've spent the last two weeks in slimy, bug-infested foxholes which fill up to the top when the torrential rains hit. You've been treated for malaria on several occasions, and had all kinds of tropical diseases. You have to fight the hordes of biting insects as well as the Japanese, and the mid-day temperature often reaches 100 degrees F.

At night, you listen to the Japanese screaming obscenities about what they're going to do to your wife and kids (who you haven't seen in nearly a year) when they're finished killing all you gaijin, and constant night skirmishes has meant you've had very little sleep since you hit the beach.

Just last night, your best buddie got killed by a Japanese soldier who appeared to be surrendering...until he pulled the pin on a grenade and jumped on your friend when it exploded.

Today you are involved in mop-up operations, and several ragged-looking Japanese regulars emerge from their tunnel with hands up.

Your current situation feels like this:

http://i990.photobucket.com/albums/af24/aussiebirdman/1000ydStare.jpg

What are you going to do?

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

(Among other things) that line of reasoning justifies liquidating villages to nail a few partisans.

[ReluctantSamurai]

I did not intend it to justify any such atrocities. What I wanted to point up is that we are all so used to pushing icons around on map and tend to forget what those icons actually represent.....that armies are made up of individual soldiers, each with their own level of moral character. When individual characters are placed under the tremendous stresses a battlefield imposes, how will they react? How would you react, given that marines' circumstance? (you didn't answer the question, btw).

One of the reasons Saving Private Ryan is my favorite war movie is that Spielberg addresses this issue on several occasions. First, when Miller's rangers have pushed past the beach and are in the process of neutralizing the fortification that's been so deadly. When the first two Germans attempt to surrender, Mellish shoots them. The rangers then go about looting dead Germans for trophy's.

Later, in Neuville, Caparzo, rather naively, exhibits the sort of compassion that one might expect from Americans, and gets shot by a sniper.

At the radar tower, after Wade gets killed, the whole scene with 'Steamboat Willie', the German taken prisoner, points up rather nicely. All the squad except Upham want to shoot him. They make him dig graves and let him go, instead.

However.....later, in the fictional village of Ramelle, Upham ends up shooting 'Steamboat Willie' himself, when he attempts to surrender a second time (and after having killed Mellish).

So......the entire range of reactions from individuals, from compassion to cold-blooded murder. My long-winded point is......rather than judging from the comfort of your home, place yourself on the battlefield.

What will you do?




.......and to answer my own original question.......I wouldn't take any chances.......I'd shoot them.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I can't know what I'd do, since I've never been in a remotely comparable situation. That doesn't have any bearing on whether such a course of action is moral or not.

However, if we can start saying "it's ok to shoot non-combatants because it's really hard for your infantryman in a warzone" why would anyone be trying to claim the moral high ground in the first place?

[ReluctantSamurai]

However, if we can start saying "it's ok to shoot non-combatants because it's really hard for your infantryman in a warzone" why would anyone be trying to claim the moral high ground in the first place?

I'm not trying to say such actions are right. Just that it's too easy to point fingers if you've never been there.

My war would've been Vietnam. My draft number was high enough that I never got called. But I've talked with vets who did go, and most get that far-away look in their eyes when recalling an event that boot camp could never prepare them for. Like when this vet had to shoot a Vietnamese woman who pulled a rifle from concealment, and was going to shoot a fellow GI who was giving candy to a kid. It still bothered him years after the event. I've had similar conversations with vets who fought in WW2 (when I lived in up-state New York, USA, there was a VA hospital in a nearby town and I did a lot of contractual work there, so I got to talk to a lot of vets). Those conversations left a lasting impression on me, obviously.....

Not looking for excuses.....just a tad bit of understanding, is all.

[Brenus]

“Not looking for excuses.....just a tad bit of understanding, is all.”
The problem is you can find reasons for all war crimes, from My Ly, to Srebrenica…

[Karl08]

“Those numbers are pure fantasy, at least in relation to the point that they are being used to make”: Yeap, figures are not exact. It was exaggerated for propaganda purpose in both sides.
But amazingly enough, not in what some could expect.
The Russian atrocities or the Allies “killing”, as the figures for Dresden, are going down, and the Nazi victims are going up with the “recent” discovery or the extermination without camps (in former USSR).
I notice you put "recent" in quotation marks, and at any rate I'd like to know what you mean by "recent". It has always been known, surely, that most victims of the Holocaust were killed outside camps.