Were the German/Japane armies good?

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#1

Hollo folks.
I found an interesting post of our new american member Strangy that seem for me is the sort of the Revisionism.

Holy true.:wink:
Indeed the Germans army wasn’t evil coz they fought against the Bolshevism.
And this wasn’t a Germans army who made a henocide toward the civil low race population (" bolshevics" who were suspected in the symphaties for partisans and Jews who was suspected to be the Jews)) in the Ukraine, Belorussia and Russia. Sure it was just Hitler with friends;)
And its seems you are fogetting tha fact that not only the GErmans army was good , but also and Luftwaffe and Krigsmarine was also GOOD.
The Luftwaffe bombed the Britain who supported the Bolsevics by lend lease and Krigsmarine sinked the US transports in Atlantic that also supported the Soviets by the LEnd lease.
So i think in this prospect you dear Strangy would not deny the obvious fact that not ONLY the Germans army , but also and the Japanes Imperor army was a good, coz they fought against the White Colonialism in Asia, right?
Sure the Japanes IMPEROR was evil, but not the Japane Army and Population coz they Believed they fought for a GOOD aim- for freedom of Asia from the “evil” western Colonian States.
And many of the Asian colonian states and its NAtional leaders ( for instance in Birma) have meeted the Japanes as a “heroes” coz they promised them the Independence;)
So the moral is next:The Both Germany and Japane was a good except the two lunatic idiots Hitler and Imperor.
Firsts save the Europe and world from the Jewish Bolshevism. Second - saved the Asia from the White Colonialism and unfair discrimination of the yellow race.
What do you think about?

#2

well, i see the imperial army very different from the western armies of Europe. I dont see them as evil, yet, they were by far the most “fanatical” in the sense they would fight to the death no matter what, the Bushido code, which brainwashed the entire imperial military forces. They were not evil, but, they’re way of thinking was much different, and there treatment of prisoners due to the bushido code was also way more harsh then any nazi pow camp. All i know, id have much rather fought in europe then the pacific. There were no rules of engagment, it was kill or be killed, fight or die, and if you surrendered you most likely were killed anyways. But then again, who are we to say whats evil and whats not?? Do we go by the biblical version of evil, or the morality issue of evil. Thats, well, a personal choice all must make.

#3

Good/Bad is imho a completely nonsensical concept when it comes to armies. They are supposed to kill people for the interests of their rulers. Hitler was one of the biggest assholes in world history and the Wehrmacht was his instrument, so they definatly served an evil purpose. But for example when it comes to the red army you are already in a dilemma. They fought in defence of their country, which is a “good” cause in that context, but served another contender for biggest asshole ever and were instrument in his aggressive political ambitions as well (winter war for example). The soviets suppressed millions of peoples for decades thanks to that outcome, though it was probably better than the variant with a victorious hitler, but I wouldn’t call a victorious soviet russia a good result for eastern europe.
So would you call the red army a good one or a bad one? Even the western allies didn’t fight for “good” or against “evil”. In both world wars it was mere power politics which kept them fighting or got them there in the first place.
But I’m pretty sure most of the young russians, american, english or german soldiers who bled or died were good people so there you could call the armies good again.

#4

Really?
And did you hear something about mass executions of Soviet pows and conditions in the Nazy Concentration Camps in the East?
I/m doubt you ever hear something - coz you’d never say that japanes were more harsh toward the prisoners.

All i know, id have much rather fought in europe then the pacific. There were no rules of engagment, it was kill or be killed, fight or die, and if you surrendered you most likely were killed anyways. But then again, who are we to say whats evil and whats not?? Do we go by the biblical version of evil, or the morality issue of evil. Thats, well, a personal choice all must make.

If you think that in the East the war with Nazy had the RULES - you are deeply mistaken. Nazy killed even the woman and children simply as the special action for the suppressing of the partisans.
Bushido code was at least the code.
Howevee in the East the Nazy killed without any code- simply coz they thought the peoples around are the low race.
Also in the East front there was a special order of Wermach that forced to shot the any soviet POW who “refuse to subordinate” ( in practice it means they simply could not work being the wounded or ill).
In the 1941-42 about 300 000 of the Soviets pows died from famine - coz Gemrnans did not wish to feed them.

So if you think you know what was the rules of war - just look to the Eastern front.

Cheers.

#5

Very reasonable approach , thanks Drake.
Sure the red army wasn’t so good for the Eastern Europe as for me and ny countryments :wink:
However not only the Soviets had its sphear of influence in the Eastern Europe but also and Western European stanes - their colonies.
And sure them all had its own “winter wars” in different time.
So there is no good/bad armies indeed.
There is ONLY the political interests. So to say the the German army was good coz they fought against the Bolshevics is foolish.

#6

Chevan,

Only in December 1941 died 500.000 Soviet POW in the german camps.

Here is the quote from the directive of the German ministry of “War Economy” writen in February 1942:
«Today’s problems with work power whould not happen if we would had involved the soviet POW in due time. We had 3,9 million in our disposal. Now we have only 1,1 million left. Only in December 1941 died half a million.»

Regards
Igor

#7

Yes Egorka sorry.
My mistake, sure you right.
I just want to show for the some of our american friends what does mean the “War without rules”- coz they mistakelly think that the japanes terror was the worst.
Indeed the putfull Japanes with his Bushido code even could not dream to kill as much POWs and peoples as the NAzy did in the East by the most brutal way.
For instance one of the lovely Nazy method was to bolt the people( jews and pows) in granary and burn them alive.
The methods that used the special punisment units like the SS groups and police battalions were even worst. The tupical “practice” was to kill 50-100 of “communists” ( i.e. the peasants , woman and children) for every 1 killed german soldier by the partisans.
So i/m really doubt that the dear Strangy will so glad to fight against the Germans in the East;)

Cheers.

#8

Just making sure Strangy gets the point. :slight_smile:

#9

Even with our grunts, I remember reading about a US Marine who was trying to dig the gold out of a Japanese soldier’s teeth while he was still alive. The Marine couldn’t get to the gold, so he cut the Japanese’s mouth, Black Dalia style to get to it. Again, he didn’t kill the Japanese grunt before doing it. Then again, who could blame him? It was because the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor that he’s getting sent to the Pacific so he could have the possibility of having his guts blown out.

Locking Japanese-Americans into internment (which I think is a euphemism for concentration) camps wasn’t exactly a saintly gesture on the part of the American government either.

I agree that it is better that the Allies won and Hitler didn’t, but I don’t believe either side was really full of saints. The Nazis who committed the war crimes always tried to save their own skins by saying “I was following orders”.

WW2 is the perfect example of how history is written by the winners. If Nazi Germany won and they took over the world like Hitler dreamed, we would probably have text books about how evil Winston Churchill or FDR was.

#10

I could blame him. It was not because of Pearl Harbor - it was because that Marine was nuts! Nothing can justify cuting someones face with a knife for a gold tooth.

#11

Again, since history is written by the winners, things like that get seldom talked about because most history books are concerned with telling the reader about how evil the Japanese were.

#12

there are two ways of looking at this particular question, if you look at the German army as a whole as a state instrument, undoubtedly it served an evil regime, if you look at the individual soldier (except for the SS who were pretty much fanatics), the individual soldier was doing his job not good or evil just mostly trying to stay alive and like any soldier in any army having to obey orders however morally repugnant, put yourselves in their shoes, you are part of a unit you have grown closer than a brother to these guys, the unit you belong to has been fighting (and dieing) under extreme circumstances you are no longer the innocent kid just out of school, you have seen and heard things that no one should have to, you get shot at from a village maybe one of your “brothers” has been killed, its not hard under those circumstances to see how the village isnt treated according to the rules of war. In the east the war was fought without the normal rules, because of Nazi Ideology that held that slavs were untermensch so what I described above would have happened a lot “easier” than in the west, its not surprising that the Soviets replied in kind.
Atrocity begets Atrocity

#13

you have to think about the attitude that was common to the allies fighting the Japanese, most soldiers dont fight passionately, they just want to live and have grandkids, after several hard campaigns against the Japanese fanatics, who would rather die than surrender, the allied soldiers pretty much didnt have any of the compassion for an enemy once he was wounded or defeated, mainly because even a wounded Japanese would still fight, like I have said Atrocity begets Atrocity, after seeing what the Japanese did to wounded allied soldiers, allied soldiers dont treat the Japanese as Humans anymore just as vermin to be eradicated.
After aussie soldiers found their mates tied to trees and used as bayonet practice, what do you think they did to the Japanese they fought against? no mercy

#14

Chevan evidently tries to prove that the Soviet Union of 1920 -1950s was a more human state that had nothing to do with genocides in conrtast to Nazi Germany. Is it because Bolsheviks killed the citizens of its own state while German Nazi concentrated their efforts on foreign nationals in other countries? The most amazing thing that both the Soviets and German Nazi genocided the population of the USSR. The only difference was that the overwhelming majority of the victims of Soviet terror did not even contemplate about resistace to Bolsheviks while Germans waged a war against a foreign state and faced extensive partisan movement. Nevertheless the Soviets certainly outperformed Germans in genociding certain nations in the USSR.

#15

That is true.

#16

Kato,

How do you define genocide? Are the deportations genocide?
Which nations were genocideed more in the USSR? Crimean Tartars? Ukrainians? Chechens?

Regards
Igor

#17

The term “genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, in 1943, from the roots γένος genos (Greek for family, tribe or race) and -cide (Latin - occido - to massacre).

In 1933, Lemkin made a presentation to the Legal Council of the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid, for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law. The concept of the crime, which later evolved into the idea of genocide, was based mostly on the experience of the Assyrians[1] massacred in Iraq on 11 August 1933. The event in Iraq reminded him of earlier similar events of the Armenian genocide during World War I. He presented his first proposal to outlaw such ‘acts of barbarism’ to the Legal Council of the League of Nations in Madrid the same year. However, the proposal failed and his work incurred the disapproval of the Polish government, which was at the time pursuing a policy of conciliation with Nazi Germany. [2]

In 1944, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published Lemkin’s most important work, entitled Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, in the United States. This book included an extensive legal analysis of German rule in countries occupied by Nazi Germany during the course of World War II, along with the definition of the term genocide[3]. Lemkin’s idea of genocide as an offense against international law was widely accepted by the international community and was one of the legal bases of the Nuremberg Trials (The indictment of the 24 Nazi leaders included in Count 3, that all the defendants “conducted deliberate and systematic genocide – namely, the extermination of racial and national groups…”[4]). Lemkin presented a draft resolution for a Genocide Convention treaty to a number of countries in an effort to persuade them to sponsor the resolution. With the support of the United States, the resolution was placed before the General Assembly for a consideration. Lemkin said about the definition of genocide in its original adoption for international law at the Geneva Conventions:

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

#18

removed

#19

Oh dear Kato coming back;)
When and where did you see i justify the Bolshevics murders ?Who were 90% of non-russians;)
You are simply the nut that used the Boslshevics terror ( the victims of which were the MAINLY the my own RIUSSIAN people) in order to justify the own ukrainian Ethhnical-clearings and mass killing of over 200 000+ of non-ukrainian civiliance in the Volun by the brutal pro-fascist UPA “partisans”.
May be this “resistance for the Soviets of the victims of soviet terror” do you mean?
This stopid Nazy demagogy to justify the ethnic terror by the previous “Bolshevics crimes”- and lovely fascist method to kill the people as for the “retribution for this”.
So this slobbery tells about Nazy regime that was more “Human” toward the Ukrainins and Russians is the neo-nazy propoganda and revisionism. This is insulting of the memory of the 1+ millions of Ukrainians who fought and died in struggle of Nazy with Red Army.

#20

Do not liestem this UPA nazy admirer Egorka.
He just want to prove that the Western Ukrainian henocide ( killing the 200 000+ poles by the most brutal way including the children) was not so GREAT EVIL as the deportation of the 300 000 Chechens ( and 200 00 Ingushs) to the Kazahstan and Suberia.
The tupical nazy-sort humanism;)