Firstly welcome on the forum Rod.
Here is one problems in your point.
Were the Nazi and Japane war criminals not not very radical if you put it into the context of the time? I think no, becouse Tokio and Nurenberg tribunal hang them independent of the context of the history.
Althought if you watch to the context you would see that the German army had the sharp shortage of foodstuffs and drugs in the last period of war. They simply could’n to feed and to treat the prisoners of the camps. (Moreover the transport system of Germany were fully crushed by the allias strategic bombings).
Thus looking them through the conditions of environment in the total war could you say we need the context of history?
…on the US at the time knowing very little about the consequences of radiation on people or its after effects
this is the aggravating circumstance indeed. Why they tested the a-bomb in the alive peoples although they didn’t knew enough about all destructions factors of A-bombing.
The theory that the bombs were somehow dropped to ‘warn off’ the Soviet Union first surfaced during the post-war Cold War.
There is however, no real evidence to support this theory, no statements by US politicians or senior military figures, no documents, nothing… :roll:
In Berlin: The Downfall, 1945 by Antony Beevor he shows that the US at this time was fairly ambivalent to the USSR. This is also reflected in the attitude of the US following the war who were quite happy to return inside their shell. It was not until Churchill made his iron curtain speech that the US took a real interest in what the USSR was doing.
I don’t subscribe to the view about warning off the Soviet Union, I only mentioned it to aknowledge it is used & believed by some people as a reason for using the bomb.
You should always put things in the context of when they happened and the attitudes prevalent at the time to judge any action by whatever side. I’m not sure what German camps you are referring to but I have no doubt many hardships were a result of the German nations collapse under the pressure of total war. However, Germany had made a business out of working & starving inmates to death as well as genocide in her work & death camps long before she fell on hard times.
It’s very difficult to argue over what is or is not a war crime. The victor will always decide this so the results will always be one sided but I don’t believe any German or Japanese officers were hung for planning bombing campaigns because they involved the killing of civilians.
However, the question here was, Should the atomic bombs have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? My view is that the decision to use them was legitimate based on the knowledge at the time and the wish to save lives and end the war sooner rather than later. The US had already killed over half a million Japanese civilians in what we would now call conventional bombing so I repeat that in the context of the time they were risking a few aircraft & crews to deliver what had previously being done by many hundreds.
As for responsibility! What about that of the Japanese military who set their country on a path to a war they new in the long term they could not win. Not one Japanese civilian would have died under US bombs whether conventional or nuclear had this decision not been made. As the much maligned Bomber Harris once said about Germany “They have sown the wind, now let them reap the whirlwind” Sorry if the quote is not 100% accurate.
If you slap the big lad in the play ground and he turns round & gives you a good hiding you only have your self to blame.
Strategic bombing had nothing to do with the deaths in the camps. The vast majority died in the first two years through deliberate mistreatment by the Nazis, in the later war period when strategic bombing did start becoming effective, the Germans were actually treating their Soviet POW’s slightly better, because they had realised that they could be used as slave labour.
The major difference between the Western Allies* and the Axis nations was that the Western Allies never organised a campaign of mass murder against the citizens of any enemy nations who fell into their hands
Even the Soviet leadership never organised such a campaign, though they did allow their troops to seek vengeance on many citizens of the Axis nations during their advance though them
You should always put things in the context of when they happened and the attitudes prevalent at the time to judge any action by whatever side.
BUT!
The issue is two fold. We live now. And we express our opinion now.
Whereas a certain action might emerge under unexpected angle when looked upon in the appropriate historical context (F.ex. introduction of killing machine Guillotine in France in XVIII century, which allowed easy and timeless execution of many-many people. But non the less it was an attempt to introduce a “humane” killing instrument where the victim’s sufferings would be minimised.), it still can easily be described as crime or an atrocity by the members of this forum. That is what I am lacking in here: allowing for the view that the a-bombing was on the limit (or over the limit) of being a war crime.
For me, today, the bombing was an action over the acceptable limit.
Just like it is nowadays officially unacceptable to make carpet bombing of the enemy cities (I am referring to strategic bombing during WW2).
But that is in the relative peace time. If, God forbid, world war happen again, there will be carpet bombing again, no doubts. Because people are capable of terrible things.
So where is someone rapes the other drops nukes and the third uses gas. One might prefer one over the others.
I prefer neither!
I can’t agree with honoured redcoat.
As could we see for instance in example of Aushwitz which begin to work on whole power since 1943-end 1944.(Exactly when had begin the first strategic a-bombing) As may be you know total official quantity of victins is about 1.2 million. Byt only in 1944 here were killed about 600 000 (i.e. about 50% of all victims)
The hungarian jews selection procedure from Wiki. At least 400 000 hungarian jews were killed JUST for 4 MONTH of 1944.
Analogical situation and in other death camps like Maydanic, Treblinka, Sobibor and ets.
This could be explaned the of beginnig of total war - in this period nazi lost any human face.(according offical Holocaust version).It seems they simply had a fear to have not enough time to kill everybody who muct be killed.
But what’s strange when Red Army or Allies liberated the any camps - thay found nothing except about some thousand bodies who were dead from illness or starvation.
So what’s the point. Indeed the strategic bombing had the direct influence to the famine of prisoners in the concentrations camps, becouse the crashed transport sistem of Germany was not able to support enought means. And certainly the prisoner -were the first who must feel it on it’s skin.
The major difference between the Western Allies* and the Axis nations was that the Western Allies never organised a campaign of mass murder against the citizens of any enemy nations who fell into their hands
So how could you explane that during firebombing of Germany were killed about 600 000 civils + 300 000 civils in firebombing of Japane+ about 150 000 of A-bombing + about 200 000 civils who perished from radiation since 1945-1950) = is over 1.2 million civils were killed ( at least half of them were women and children)?
That’s because they were death camps, the vast majority of people sent to the camps were killed on the first day they arrived. The Nazis only kept alive those who would be useful as slave labour, and even with these it was the German policy to work them to death, they were only keeping these alive while they served a purpose
This is true redcoat.
But this is very controvercial question. Becouse the mass killing of civilians was also goal for the bombers. They certainly knew about victims who was inevitable perished. Moreover we have anough memours and recollections where the civilian aim was the central. ( look for instamce to the memours of Artur Harris “Strategic bombing”).
Anyway IMHO we coudln’t to establish the standarts of humanity by calling that the deliberately killed by the Nazis the civils was a war crime but the “incidental” victims of strategic bombing was not.
I don’t think that strategic bombing and A-bombing was on the same level of “badness” as lets say Holocaust or other German/Japanese cleansing actions.
But it looks to me that you, Redcoat, claim that USA/UK governoment were not capable of a war crime at all.
Do I understand you correctly?
Well i’m agree at all but we have the problem with figures of victims.
As may be you know the total figure of is 6 million. But where were the bodies?
If as it was stated they were burned in the crematorium , but the simple calculation get you the fact to fully burn for instance the one million bodies in Aushwitz you need such crazy quantity of wood or coal that half Germany could heat entire winter.
I think for the country which had a total war it was absolutely unacceptable at least from the purely economic point.
Where are your calculations??? Would like to see them. Even thou I would argue exact number maybe +or- a million I still believe that number is very close.
Also another good reason for the nazi’s to get rid of the Jews (from their perpective) would be that they simply would not have to deal with them. No food water or whatever else. Means more suppliy for those who need it.
This is one of the usual denier claims going the rounds…
The fact is that the Auschwitz furnaces were designed to run continuously, using the heat energy produced by the burning of previous bodies to keep the oven hot for the next bodies. After they were fired with coke to their proper operating temperature at the beginning of the day, they required little or no extra fuel to operate.
The fact is though, that once these citizens had come under the control of the Western Allies the killing stopped, while with the Nazis, especially in the east, the killing had only just started
Anyway IMHO we coudln’t to establish the standarts of humanity by calling that the deliberately killed by the Nazis the civils was a war crime but the “incidental” victims of strategic bombing was not.
Cheers.
Actually, its more a case of you not wanting to accept what legally can be classed as a war crime during WW2.
You seem intent on questioning the numbers killed by the Nazis in the holocaust while attempting to claim that the actions by the Western Allies in the war were in many ways as bad as the Nazis.
Oh, they were perfectly capable of commiting war crimes, its just that in WW2 they didn’t wage a war of conquest and genocide, which is exactly the type of war the Nazis fought .
You may wish to consider that the bombings of civilians should have been a war crime, but the fact is, at the time it wasn’t.
Oh, they were perfectly capable of commiting war crimes, its just that in WW2 they didn’t wage a war of conquest and genocide, which is exactly the type of war the Nazis fought .
You may wish to consider that the bombings of civilians should have been a war crime, but the fact is, at the time it wasn’t.
Fair enough. I agree.
By the way, I can not be sure, but I do not think that Chevan claims that German and Allied atrocities during the whole war are equal in magnitude (if one may use any calculation for this matter).
I think, his point is that, taking one specific instance (a-bombing or carpet bombing of Dresden, lets say) one can see that Allies were actually as bad or worse.
Not becauseof Germans were bunnies, just because they could not deliver bombs on the same scale as USA/UK).
I my self heard many statements about how terrible the bombing of London was. But there is no comparison between bombardent of UK and Germany.
P.S: Regarding what you say that bombing civilians was not a war crime at the time of war. Again, I am not sure if this is correct as such.
When Germans bombed Guernica in Spain on 26-Apr-1937, they did on purpose bombed urban populated area. Firstly for the terror. Secondly becasue they wanted to study the effect of the mass bombing attack on civil population (Does it remind you anything, by the way?). And as i know this attack had been presented as a crime from the begining.
But I allow for possibility that “war crime” was defined differently in the 1940th. Would be interesting to find out.
While its true that the Allies bombing campaign was eventually far greater in scale than the German one was, the Allies attempted to avoid fighting a bombing campaign which would target civilian areas at the start of WW2. It was only the attacks by the Luftwaffe on towns and cities during the battle of France, which caused them to abandon this stance
I my self heard many statements about how terrible the bombing of London was. But there is no comparison between bombardent of UK and Germany.
Not in scale but the tactics were the same, . In fact it was the Germans who pioneered the tactic of area bombing and the use of incindiaries to create large scale fires.
P.S: Regarding what you say that bombing civilians was not a war crime at the time of war. Again, I am not sure if this is correct as such.
When Germans bombed Guernica in Spain on 26-Apr-1937, they did on purpose bombed urban populated area. Firstly for the terror. Secondly becasue they wanted to study the effect of the mass bombing attack on civil population (Does it remind you anything, by the way?).
The attack was aimed at a bridge in the center of the town which was on a supply route to the front, the terror and fear the attack caused were just an added bonus as far as the Nazis were concerned
And as i know this attack had been presented as a crime from the begining.
But I allow for possibility that “war crime” was defined differently in the 1940th. Would be interesting to find out.
It may have been ‘presented’ as a war crime, but legally it wasn’t
Until 1947 the law on the bombardment of civilian towns and cities was that it was illegal to bomb any city or town that was undefended or had been declared on ‘open city’ by its government. Seeing that in WW2 no German town or city was ever declared an ‘open city’ and that they couldn’t be classed as undefended even when they had no flak, due to the fact they had the Luftwaffe theoretically giving them some fighter defence, the bombing of these cities was not a war crime.
