Equality in death

World War II General WWII Discussion
#1

Okay, we all know more/less what happened during ww2.
the thing that intrigues me is that some nationals or nations are more “privileged” even in death than others.

I. For example, if you look British documentaries on history channel etc. about Anglo-Rissia-German conflict, about 1/3 of time is dedicated to holocaust ie. Jews.
Overall, I would rate coverage of victims like this:

  1. Jews getting 90% of coverage,
  2. Russians 5%,
  3. Germans 1%…

And this approach is plainly wrong for 2 reasons:

  1. not only Jews were subject to holocaust. Huge numbers of gypsy’s, Russians, other Slavs etc died in German detention/concentration/extermination camps.
  2. If you look at chart on
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_War_II_Casualties.svg
    you’ll see that Soviets ie. (mostly Russians) suffered large part of civilian casualties during the war (alongside Chinese for this matter). But almost nothing is ever said about them.

And for jackpot let’s mention 5 million people that died in Congo during past decade without anyone lifting left finger nail about that let alone write newspaper article.

II. Wehrmacht/SS crimes are thoroughly examined like on this page:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_Wehrmacht
but any footage of Allied war crimes like bombing of German cities were promptly confiscated after war never to be shown again in history. Not to mention burning Japanese dead…

Moreover, crimes of Red Army over Germans are not nearly as well researched or publicized although in some cases dwarfing in scale and especially in volume to what happened to Allied civilians like:

  • sinking Wilhelm Gustoff with 10.000 civilians on board
  • systematic strafing and bombing of retreating Prussian civilians over Haffa* something pass :slight_smile: (narrow corridor over Baltic sea) where 20.000 or so civilians died, well described by Beevor and Seyer
  • literal extermination of Prussian civilians for that matter, anywhere they were found, mostly came down to running over civilian columns in -20C with tanks. Ethnic cleansing that was well planned and executed by Stalin, with obvious blessing from Churchill/Roosevelt who bombed Koenigsberg.

Asside SS, Wehrmacht never sank so low. You could call Leningrad equivalent of Allied bombings as Germans were ranging death there from afar. Even more, most civilians died of cold/malnutrition rather than bullets/bombs.

As to conclude there is apparent distinction of:

  • ethnicity of killed civilians regarding its publicizing
  • research and documentation of committed war crimes regarding victor&loser
#2

Or, perhaps:

  1. The post-war influence in the West of certain ethnicities and or political movements, notably Jews and Zionists, distorted our focus through things such as Simon Wiesenthal’s very well publicised but not very successful pursuit of Nazis who harmed Jews.

  2. That influence being fuelled by the continuing discrimination against and abuse of those influential ethnicities to varying degrees in the West and elsewhere, whereas nobody cared or even heard about, for example, persecution of gypsies during and after the war because they have long been reviled by most of Europe and nobody cared if their population was reduced.

  3. That influence not being balanced by other ethnicities and or nations, notably those in Eastern Europe, successfully presenting themselves in the West as victims of and pursuing their vengeance and or justice against the Nazis despite being the peoples who, numerically, suffered at least as badly as the Jews.

  4. Ultimately, ethnicity of civilians, and for that matter POWs, killed is irrelevant in the realpolitik which determines how governments act. For example, the Americans could have prosecuted some vile Japanese over crimes against Americans and others at Harbin, not to mention many other Japanese the Americans and British had in custody in the late 1940s who were guilty of appalling war crimes, but realpolitik determined that the Americans and British would rather use the Japanese militarists / fascists as allies against the communists in China and the USSR than prosecute them.

  5. At government and national level, there is no justice, no honesty, and no concern for them when that interferes with national interest as perceived by whoever is control at the time and the exercise of power in pursuit of ‘national interest’, no matter how much our leaders wrap themselves in our flags and assure us that they are sending our young men and women off to die in defence of noble principles rather than the usually squalid commercial, political, and ideological / religious interests (collectively called ‘strategic interests’ which, for example, somehow make America’s survival dependent upon the survival of Israel which is an economically and strategically unimportant but internationally troublesome pimple on the shore of the Mediterranean) which are at the heart of all wars.

#3

There was an aful lot of former nazis in police, administrative and intelligence positions put right back in to the equivalent of their old jobs.
They were the ones who knew the jobs and the clod war required use of their intel system and information to include other assets and personnel.
Relatively few real nazi criminals met the rope.

A lot of the Japanese did a better job of covering their tracks or died in the war.

Wikepidea is not a good source of deep historical information
They have a left leaning agenda, and accept some input that cries for deeper actual research.

Some of the so called factual resources on the internet have the intellectual depth of oil slicks.

#4

Probably considerably fewer than the equivalent in Japan.

The denazification programme in Europe had no equivalent in Japan.

Outside of some senior IJA / IJN circles, MacArthur pretty much left the same people in control of Japan after the war who had been in control of it during the war, which duly led to the self-deluding nonsense Japanese officialdom, education and politics have been engaged in since WWII about denying or misrepresenting Japan’s war conduct.

Unlike the Nuremberg Trials, the Allies chose not to prosecute a lot of Japanese accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity around 1948 when the Allies, primarily America, decided that Japan would be better as an ally against the Chinese and Russian communists facing Japan across the seas.

The German police etc put back in their jobs were somewhat modified by the Allies’ denazification programme, and Germany certainly altered its position after the war to become a stout champion of anti-fascist causes, but in Japan it ended up being pretty much ‘business as usual’ with minor modifications under the Occupation because MacArthur failed to confront and alter the Japanese society which produced and supported the militarists.

#5

If you look at where the casualties were from, you get your answer. Outside the Iron Curtain, the casualties of the Germans were overwhelmingly Jewish and those of the Japanese were mainly PoWs and some forced labourers. A whole bunch of others were freed (principally Soviet PoWs), but they went back behind the iron curtain and were kept quiet. Hence, until 1989, the majority of people talking about their experiences were Jews and Allied PoWs on the Burma Railway - and guess what, those are the groups at the forefront of the public mind to this day. No conspiracy about it, just the nature of history and human memory.

#6

Interesting post really.

There are staggering differences for why there are so many Russian deaths. The Russians suffered the most - Because they were invaded and their style of fighting was to “throw more men” into battle AND they had more men to do so. The Germans weren’t nearly as kind as they were in other countries, such as France, hence the huge amount of civilian deaths.

But the reason the Jewish side of this gets replayed is because of how it was done. Most of the deaths on the Russian side were in combat or due to combat related causes, quick and painless. With the Jews… They were rounded up slowly, entire families, everything taken from them, they were held in gettos, treated like cattle, until they either died from starvation or disease or were out right killed.

More or less, a single race was singled out to be exterminated.

#7

If you read Tooze “Wages of Destruction”, the Nazi had several deliberate policy in place that lead to mass civilian deaths, with the anti Jewish policy being just one of them. They also realized by 1942 they could not feed the occupied territories in the east [especially in Poland] and feed their own population to the same calorific levels. So occupied eastern territories were systematically starved to death under the “Hunger plan” as the crop yields declined. It was also cheaper that way.

The Whole invasion of Russia was predicated on the assumption they would starve to death/ work to death 30-40 million Slavic peoples so they could replace them with German immigrants to build their ‘empire’. According to Tooze Hitler got this idea from studying how the Americans displaced the north American Indians in the previous century. He intended to do in a matter of years what took the Americans decades. And we won’t say anything about the policies to the black slave trading in the same century.

I gather the British did the same thing in India in the 17-19th centuries. Over and above the 10 million Indie combatants that were killed in fighting as ‘terrorists’, another 45 million civilians died as a result of starvation policies enacted by the British governor. If you listen to Indie historians 25 million of these civilians were starved to death in the last three decades of Queen Victoria’s rule into the early 20th century.

And we wont say anything about Stalins treatment of the Poles etc. According to Norman Davis right after they invaded Poland in 1939, the deported 2.5 million Poles to Siberia were they were systematically starved to death [Davis reports 1 million were dead after the first year in captivity].

Some times I wonder if alot of this “Allied” [Russian/American/British] attention paid on the Germans & Holocust is to avoid dealing with their own dirty pasts.

#8

Perhaps, but they’re only ‘most’ because of the eight million or more Soviet (as distinct from Russian) military personnel who died about three million died as POWs of the Germans compared with maybe 10,000? Western Allies prisoners of the Germans. This is all from memory, but the Soviets suffered something like a 60% death rate in their POWs in German hands compared with very low single digits for Western Allies.

Leaving aside the fact that combat deaths are not necessarily quick or painless (and that I don’t have figures for Soviet KIA v DOW), your comment that the Jews were ‘treated like cattle, until they either died from starvation or disease or were out right killed’ applies equally to the Soviet POWs. There are countless reports by Western Allied POWs who were distressed and appalled by German treatment of Soviet POWs in adjoining compounds as they were left to the ravages of disease and starvation.

#9

Outside the Iron Curtain, the casualties of the Germans were overwhelmingly Jewish

Why the distinction, absolute numbers are what counts. And they say something like 15 million SU civilians dead.

Most of the deaths on the Russian side were in combat or due to combat related causes, quick and painless.

I would strongly disagree on this one. SU civilians died mostly of hunger, disease and cold which in some cases took years - look at Leningrad. Ordinary (non-partisan) Russian civilians were not actively prosecuted by Wehrmacht, only Jews and Commissars. Actually many SU citizens sided with Germans, mostly Ukrainians in hope to overthrow Stalin.

Some times I wonder if alot of this “Allied” [Russian/American/British] attention paid on the Germans & Holocaust is to avoid dealing with their own dirty pasts.

And I am surprised how little people is able to see through this cunning ploy…

#10

Then the Jews won, because a lot more Germans died than Jews.

#11

Then the Jews won, because a lot more Germans died than Jews.

Well the topic wasn’t intended who won or lost in dead people, rather to discuss why nobody mentions for example dead Russian civilians.

P.S
and if indeed 6 million Jews died in ww2, and if I remember correctly around 6 million Germans died as well - that would put them on even grounds (at least as numbers are concerned). Jews however were not homogeneous group, they lived in different countries and spoke different languages and owned different citizenships. In our minds we are trained to subconsciously connect them to state of Israel as if they were nowday Israelis rather than citizens of SU or USA for example.
In that respect, it would be better to compare them to executed gypsies, but interestingly enough nobody ever drew that parallel.

#12

Then it’s a draw. On absolute numbers.

Of course, the Nazis were armed. And in control. Which gave them a bit of an advantage.

Which is why the Nazis had to import them to their death camps as there weren’t enough Jews in Germany to sustain their murderous desires towards all Jews everywhere.

Germans weren’t exactly a homogenous group either, having been unified as a nation from disparate parts a mere half century or so before the Nazis began their rise.

Trained by whom?

I don’t connect the Jews murdered by the Nazis to Israel, not least because they were murdered before they had the opportunity to emigrate to Israel from Germany where they were German citizens and from other European nations where they were citizens of the relevant country invaded by Germany.

As for citizens of the USSR or USA, during WWII the former were at risk as civilians and servicepeople and the latter as servicepeople fighting the Nazis. Nowadays they are just people of the relevant nation who happen to be Jews, in the same way that other people in those nations happen to be Catholics or Lutherans or Muslims or Buddhists or agnostics or atheists or arseholes or whatever.

The comparison has often been made by those well informed about Nazi murder campaigns. For example,

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/gypsies.html

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005482

However, they are not really parallels as the reasons for persecution of each group, and of the other groups targeted by the Nazis, flow from different sources.

#13

As Antony Beevor (author of Berlin, Stalingrad, and D-Day–which I am reading now) states it best when discussing the “victimhood” status of raped German women:

Other historians such as Richard Overy, a historian from King’s College London, have criticised Russian “outrage” at the book and defended Beevor. Overy accused the Russians of refusing to acknowledge Soviet war crimes, “Partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse, and partly it was because they were writing the victors’ history.”[8]

Beevor has stated that German women were part of a society that supported Hitler and thus can’t be seen as victims in the same way than Jews, Poles and Russians.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Beevor

#14

This Friday for 2nd time I posted reply which disappeared !"!!

#15

Are you sure your posts are appearing?

Press the wrong button while you’re composing and what you’ve written will disappear without posting on the forum.

#16

The difference between the Jews during WWII and other ethnic groups is that the Germans singled them out. Regardless of the country that the Jews were in, or whether they were in Eastern or Western Europe, the Germans deported and killed them. It is true that numerically many more SU civiilians died than Jews but as someone else said, these were USUALLY (though not always) related to the war. However, the PERCENTAGE of pre-war population of ethnic groups that were killed is much more telling than the raw numbers.

#17

I’m not sure that numerically more Soviets died than Jews. For that matter, I think both China and Poland may have suffered the greatest number of deaths proportional to population IIRC. I could be wrong about this though…

#18

As Antony Beevor (author of Berlin, Stalingrad, and D-Day–which I am reading now) states it best when discussing the “victimhood” status of raped German women:

Nickdefresh wrote:
[i][b]Other historians such as Richard Overy, a historian from King’s College London, have criticised Russian “outrage” at the book and defended Beevor. Overy accused the Russians of refusing to acknowledge Soviet war crimes, “Partly this is because they felt that much of it was justified vengeance against an enemy who committed much worse, and partly it was because they were writing the victors’ history.”[8]

Beevor has stated that German women were part of a society that supported Hitler and thus can’t be seen as victims in the same way than Jews, Poles and Russians.[10]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Beevor[/b][/i]

Then it will be fair when it comes to russian “victimhood” status to consider that they were part of a society that supported Stalin who killed far more russians than Hitler himself?

In the original version of his book The Great Terror, Robert Conquest gave the following estimates of those arrested, executed, and incarcerated during the height of the Purge:
Arrests, 1937-1938 - about 7 million
Executed - about 1 million
Died in camps - about 2 million
In prison, late 1938 - about 1 million
In camps, late 1938 - about 8 million
Conquest concluded that “not more than 10 percent of those then in camp survived.” Updating his figures in the late 1980s based on recently-released archival sources, he increased the number of “arrests” to 8 million, but reduced the number in camps to “7 million, or even a little less.” This would give a total death toll for the main Purge period of just under ten million people. About 98 percent of the dead (Gendercide Watch’s calculation) were male.
The estimates are “only approximations,” Conquest notes, and “anything like complete accuracy on the casualty figures is probably unattainable.” But “it now seems that further examination of the data will not go far from the estimates we now have except, perhaps, to show them to be understated”; and “in any case, the sheer magnitudes of the Stalin holocaust are now beyond doubt.” He cites Joseph Berger’s remark that the atrocities of Stalin’s rule “left the Soviet Union in the condition of ‘a country devastated by nuclear warfare.’” (All figures and quotes from Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, pp. 485-88.)
http://www.gendercide.org/case_stalin.html

And yet Stalin was funded and armed by the allies, a paradox that could be explained as a real politik matter.

PD: Some years ago I spent my vacations in NY and went to visit a friend in New London, Connecticut.
There were some nice small towns around there like Mystic and I remember a charming small town night club in Groton, there were also a town called Hamburg not far away, is that your home?

Regards,

#19

Hello… I would like to see a breakdown, country-by-country,
of how many soldiers and citizens that lost their lives from the beginning to the official end of World War II. This would give us all a much clearer picture of the loses each country suffered due to the war. If anyone has this data, it would be great to have it posted.

Thanks!

Doc

#20

But who invaded whom? Who started the war? Oh, and as far as the United States providing aid to the the Soviets, well, as I’ve stated in another thread in the form of a rhetorical question: why did Hitler invade Soviet Russia to begin with? To “save” mankind from “Jewish-Bolshevism?” Or from capitalistic American “Jewry?” I think if you read Adam Tooze’s Wages of Destruction, you’ll inevitably agree that Hitler’s rationale of invading the U.S.S.R. had less to do with stopping Stalin and more to do with attempting to achieve economic and industrial parity with the United States. To position Germany for a ‘long war’ with the “Jewish” controlled U.S.A…

PD: Some years ago I spent my vacations in NY and went to visit a friend in New London, Connecticut.
There were some nice small towns around there like Mystic and I remember a charming small town night club in Groton, there were also a town called Hamburg not far away, is that your home?

Regards,

I don’t live in Connecticut, though I do work there sometimes. It’s New York actually…