Churchill war criminal, says German historian

[Wernazuma III]

And best of all: Bomb the with fugitives overcrowded in two waves: First only a bit, then wait until the ambulances and firemen rush in and then finish them.

[MRT144]

i find nothing wrogn with bombing a populace that stood idly by while jews gypsies communists and catholics were rounded up and sent to concetration camps.

[HazieDaVampire]

Anyways, no one on the Germans side was put on trial for the bombing of london.

and Chriss 62, you missed out Liverpool, Sunderland, Newcastle.

My Great Aunt got stuck under a table when her house got hit, they had to cut off the legs to get her out!
The legs of the table, not my aunt!

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by MRT144
i find nothing wrogn with bombing a populace that stood idly by while jews gypsies communists and catholics were rounded up and sent to concetration camps.

I see no justification in that argument for two reasons that spring to mind. 1) If they had not been idle, they would be joining them in the camp - so you cannot hold them accountable. 2) Murder (through bombing) is a worse crime than not preventing murder (through inaction) - the moral angle is laughable.

[MRT144]

1)so being morally right and dead is worse than being morally wrong and alive? god forbid some of them show a little backbone...

2)it wasnt murder that the germans allowed, it was genocide.it was advocated by the goverment and blazed into the conciousness of the german populace. i find the murder of people who supported and assisted in the genocide acceptable.

[Dauphin]

1)so being morally right and dead is worse than being morally wrong and alive?

Thats a personal decision, but choosing the latter is no reason to murder them.

i find the murder of people who supported and assisted in the genocide acceptable

What about the thousands of Dresden residents who were killed that silently opposed the genocide?

[MRT144]

they should have left the country...like thousands of people did when the nazis came to power.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by MRT144
they should have left the country...like thousands of people did when the nazis came to power.

And where should they go with most of europe under control of Nazi-Germany?

And of course with the GESTAPO (Geheime Staatspolizei, a kind of SecretService against dissidents within Germany) controlling everything and everyone within Germany?

[Buck Birdseed]

You can't "silently oppose" anything. Every silent member of society in a dictatorship is part of the collective structure of oppression, you're not "just following orders" but are an integral part of any social machine. As a citizen, you have the duty to actively pursue freedom, otherwise you're implicitly supporting the system. Thoreau can kiss my ass.

OTOH, I don't think anyone deserves to be bombed for anything, so I'm really agreeing with you, I suppose.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
It should also be pointed out that the Germans eventually deliberately farmed out their war materials production to residential areas in an attempt to protect them from Allied bombing. Using civilians as a shield is considered a war crime.

I have never heard that the Germans had a deliberate plan to 'farm out' productive capacity to civilian areas in order to shield manfucaturing from area bombing. I would need a source on that.

I was under the impression that the Germans experimented with the building underground factories. Especially in the area of producing socalled retalliatory weapons such as the V1 cruise-missile.

Also - another thing pointed out by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith is that the area-bombing of workers quarters - and it is significant that it was workers quarters- actually helped the German war machine in the last spasms of mobilization during 44-45.
People who had been not particularily loyal to the regime now found that their livelihood was destroyed. this he claims actually meant that the German army and the Volksturm militias were the only institution were homeless and jobless men could be fed and clothed.

So I am thinking this. Remember the German Economy did not reach full mobilization until 44-45. Until then it been an army characterized by professionalism and technological superiority. Far from the bombardment being an act of insane revenge there was 1) political calculation behind it. Socializing the German workers into army life and impress them with further authoritarianism 2) In order to secure against a communist countercoup in future occupied territories in Germany. 3) The bloated German workers army was mostly employed in the east against the Red Army in a morbid numbers game. Thus the threat of the Red Army completely overrunning the European market could be averted.

Futher points
1) The allies demanded unconditional surrender. Why?
2) The allies were fully aware of the German concentration camps, yet these were not bombed, neither were the railroads leading to them. Why?

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Like I said up above, by 1944 and 1945 the Germans had moved a lot of parts manufacturing and assembly to small shops in residential areas. IIRC Dresden was supposed to be involved in the manufacture of airplane parts.

The plane factory is the only place, where these supposed parts could be built, unless you call the production of screws for the instrument panel "manufacturing airplane parts" too, but in the latter case you could have level bombed the whole Germany. The factory is located many kilometers north in the outskirts of the city, far away of any residental area. And it was left completely intact. So were the barracks and the airport itself. I was in the (now former) plane factory and in the barracks (later used by the Russians, now by the Saxon government). All historic, pre-war buildings. How does this fit in your history? Oh, I forgot your issue with blind pilots, who are unable to tell a tractor from a tank and a wedding from a military formation.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by MRT144
1)so being morally right and dead is worse than being morally wrong and alive? god forbid some of them show a little backbone...

If you had a family and were under the threat that showing such "backbone" would land you and them in a concentration camp, or get you shot on the spot, I'd like to see how much "backbone" you'd really show. It's easy in hindsight to have such moral "courage."

2)it wasnt murder that the germans allowed, it was genocide.it was advocated by the goverment and blazed into the conciousness of the german populace. i find the murder of people who supported and assisted in the genocide acceptable.

Many Germans did not approve of the Nazis, many didn't know what was really happening in the Holocaust. Many of those bombed in Dresden were children. These people did nothing to assist in the genocide except live in Germany. You say they should have left the country. Is it so easy for peasants to up and leave Europe when it is overrun by the Nazis? Flee where?

And the city was packed with 250,000+ refugees fleeing the Soviet advance, hoping to end up under American and British control so they wouldn't face the brutality of the Russians. Their mistake, I suppose you'd say.

[Boris Godunov]

Oh, and, under your logic MRT144, the U.S. would have been morally justified in wiping every Russian off the face of the earth. After all, they stood idly by while Stalin mass-murdered millions. Those bastards!

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


The plane factory is the only place, where these supposed parts could be built, unless you call the production of screws for the instrument panel "manufacturing airplane parts" too, but in the latter case you could have level bombed the whole Germany. The factory is located many kilometers north in the outskirts of the city, far away of any residental area. And it was left completely intact. So were the barracks and the airport itself. I was in the (now former) plane factory and in the barracks (later used by the Russians, now by the Saxon government). All historic, pre-war buildings. How does this fit in your history? Oh, I forgot your issue with blind pilots, who are unable to tell a tractor from a tank and a wedding from a military formation.

You can preassemble parts like fuel injectors, carbuerators and etc. As far as "blind pilots" let's see how much you can see on the ground at 30,000 feet.

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by HazieDaVampire
Anyways, no one on the Germans side was put on trial for the bombing of london.

and Chriss 62, you missed out Liverpool, Sunderland, Newcastle.

My Great Aunt got stuck under a table when her house got hit, they had to cut off the legs to get her out!
The legs of the table, not my aunt!

My mother was a little girl in Manchester during the Blitz, although not heavily bombed, she remember those years quite vididly, as did the entire WWII generation.

Boris is correct about Dresden, and the equally troubling and pointless attack on Nuremberg is even worse, the war was over (about a week or so left), the place had nothing EXCEPT the memory of Nazi rallies in the 30s, so bombed it was.

As far as I know, the only aviator executed for war crimes at Nurmemberg was a Lutfwaffe officer for the Rotterdam attack.

The real point was that WWII was a total war in every way, the axis were defaeted completely and have never again been a threat to anyone since that time.
People should bear that in mind before condeming the methods used by the allies to win it I think.
Since that time, wars have been fought with boundries and rules, and have resolved nothing.
A 50 year standoff in Korea, endless arab-israeli wars, a 22 year war in Southeast asia, and many others.
Yes, WWII was unpleasant, but it was decisive and ended after 6 years, and the nations that started it are now peaceful and prosperous.

So which method is better?

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Tripledoc


I have never heard that the Germans had a deliberate plan to 'farm out' productive capacity to civilian areas in order to shield manfucaturing from area bombing. I would need a source on that.

Try "Dirty Little Secrets of WWII" and Albert Speer's book "Inside the Third Reich".

So I am thinking this. Remember the German Economy did not reach full mobilization until 44-45. Until then it been an army characterized by professionalism and technological superiority. Far from the bombardment being an act of insane revenge there was 1) political calculation behind it. Socializing the German workers into army life and impress them with further authoritarianism 2) In order to secure against a communist countercoup in future occupied territories in Germany. 3) The bloated German workers army was mostly employed in the east against the Red Army in a morbid numbers game. Thus the threat of the Red Army completely overrunning the European market could be averted.

Oh come on. There is no way that the allies could have been able to predict or control Nazi command policy. This is just plain paranoid rambling.

Futher points
1) The allies demanded unconditional surrender. Why?
2) The allies were fully aware of the German concentration camps, yet these were not bombed, neither were the railroads leading to them. Why?

1) The Allies left Germany to deal with the postwar itself after WWI and look what happened. The demand for "unconditional surrender" was the best thing to happen to Germany since the discovery of ores in the Ruhr basin.
2) Bombing the railroads was considered, but FDR felt that at best the allies would only marginally hold up transportation into the camps and might even stimulate them to speed things up, or to simply shoot the ews where ever they found them. Bombing the camps would simply have made the allies co-conspirqators, as the type of bomber capable of reaching that far into Nazi Europe was not accurate enough to pick off guard towers or barracks. Next I suppose you'll ask why they didn't use laser guided bombs.

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
I have never heard that the Germans had a deliberate plan to 'farm out' productive capacity to civilian areas in order to shield manfucaturing from area bombing. I would need a source on that.

They even had a weapons system for it, the He-162 Salamander.
Many of it's components were made "cottege industry" style, with final assembly to be in factoris.
http://www.vectorsite.net/avhe162.html

I was under the impression that the Germans experimented with the building underground factories. Especially in the area of producing socalled retalliatory weapons such as the V1 cruise-missile.

They did indeed.

Also - another thing pointed out by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith is that the area-bombing of workers quarters - and it is significant that it was workers quarters- actually helped the German war machine in the last spasms of mobilization during 44-45.
People who had been not particularily loyal to the regime now found that their livelihood was destroyed. this he claims actually meant that the German army and the Volksturm militias were the only institution were homeless and jobless men could be fed and clothed.

Most people to this day don't understand that the only target that the allies hit that crippled Germany was TRANSPORTATION.
They tried Aircraft factories, ball-bearings, Oil, manufacturing, none of this worked.
It was only by destroying Germany's railnet that they really crippled the Reich, Germany relied heavily on Coal for industry and home heating, with rails large areas of Germany could not operate, industries such as snythetic oil was serverly damaged by the lack of coal (After Ploesti fell to the Russians, snythetic fuels were all Germany had), and what stocks they had could not be moved quickly to where it was needed.
Battlefield accounts of the German armed forces show this quite clearly, opprotunites to counter-attack were lost time and again due to fuel shortages.
Germany produced 25,000 fighters in 1944, but it could not train pilots for them, or even use many of them for lack of aviation fuel.

So I am thinking this. Remember the German Economy did not reach full mobilization until 44-45. Until then it been an army characterized by professionalism and technological superiority. Far from the bombardment being an act of insane revenge there was 1) political calculation behind it. Socializing the German workers into army life and impress them with further authoritarianism 2) In order to secure against a communist countercoup in future occupied territories in Germany. 3) The bloated German workers army was mostly employed in the east against the Red Army in a morbid numbers game. Thus the threat of the Red Army completely overrunning the European market could be averted.

This an attempt to proscribe modern motivations to WWII events, that were not considerations in the 1940s.
I doubt any of this ever even crossed the minds of Harris nor Hap Arnold, let alone Churchill.

Futher points
1) The allies demanded unconditional surrender. Why?

To avoid a repaet of the WWI mantra "We was robbed!", that esentially was Hitler's most popular postion.

2) The allies were fully aware of the German concentration camps, yet these were not bombed, neither were the railroads leading to them. Why?

The bomber commands were not, and it must be remembered they were looking to shorten the war, they hit Rails regualrly late in WWII, starting in 1944.
Also, untill the camps were physically over-run, much of the intelligence was not believed (The home government was convinced the poles were lying, trying to get increased allied weapons drops with outragious claims) at the highest allied levels.
Another factor is that Churchill was not a dictator, he had to answer for military operations, and bombing targets in Poland required Russian help, even heavy bombers could not make the round trip from Britain carring any kind of bomb load, it was beyound a Lancaster or a Flying Fortress.
Only by landing in Russia could this be done effectivily.
Russia ONLY permitted this in 1944, and then for a LIMITED time (and they DIDN'T defend the airfields, they were raided by the Luftwaffe, and a number of Flying Forts were destroyed on the ground).

[Rogan Josh]

Some people here seem to be taking the position that it was OK for the UK to do whatever they liked in WWII because the Germans 'started it'. Anything at all to win the war seems acceptable.

In that case, when the US finally attacks Iraq, will Iraq be justified in doing anything at all to win the war? Will it be OK in your eyes for them to kill innocent women and children? After all, they won't be the ones 'starting it'.....

[germanos]

Originally posted by UberKruX


please correct me and fill me in as you see fit:

Dresden was a cultural center for germany that the alled forces fire-bombed to cinders. was there any industry there? rumors of any industry? any reason other than terrorism to bomb it?

thanks in advance.

Dresden was targeted to see if Bomber Command had understood the fire-storms after the bombing of Hamburg. There, after extensive bombing, fire-storms occured. Bomber Command was intrigued by it, and they looked for ways to create such a devestating event on purpose.

After some attempts to create fire-storms, which failed to create the desired effect, it was thought that previous bombing of the targets had had an 'undesired' effect on the calculations made to create a fire storm.

To make sure their 'test' would not be influenced by external factors, they choose a thusfar untouched target. Since Dresden had not been bombed since it had no strategic value, it was perfect for this goal.

This time it worked.

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Have they appologized about Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry, London, Warsaw......

So what? Surely you're not suggesting that it was okay for us to do it if they did it?

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Anything that stopped Nazis was a good thing, BTW.

by late 1944, with these bombings still going on, the war was already effectively won.

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Chris 62
War is a crime Che, once it comes, rules go out the door when fighting scum like the Nazis or Imperial Japan.

Remembering the rules is what was supposed to make us better than them.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by zulu9812


by late 1944, with these bombings still going on, the war was already effectively won.

20-20 hindsight is great, isn't it? Not much comfort when you're being hit by V2's on a daily basis, however.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
In that case, when the US finally attacks Iraq, will Iraq be justified in doing anything at all to win the war? Will it be OK in your eyes for them to kill innocent women and children? After all, they won't be the ones 'starting it'.....

Uhhhh...... Since the war will be fought on Iraqi soil are you suggesting that they might start killing their own women and children? Wouldn't that be about as silly as the sheriff taking himself hostage in "Blazing Saddles"?

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


Uhhhh...... Since the war will be fought on Iraqi soil are you suggesting that they might start killing their own women and children? Wouldn't that be about as silly as the sheriff taking himself hostage in "Blazing Saddles"?

No, but Iraqi 'freedom fighters' could plant explosives in your living room. Would that be justified?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp


20-20 hindsight is great, isn't it? Not much comfort when you're being hit by V2's on a daily basis, however.

Dresden was bombed in Feb. 1945. The war was over, we knew it was over. The V2s weren't hitting London daily. They were very sporadic at this point in the war.

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by zulu9812
So what? Surely you're not suggesting that it was okay for us to do it if they did it?

Your suggesting the allies not do everything possible to win.
Do you REALLY understand what war is?
It's not a game, and it knows no rules.

by late 1944, with these bombings still going on, the war was already effectively won.

The war was "effectively won" on December 7, 1941, when the US enters the conflict.
Why didn't Hitler surrender right there?

Remembering the rules is what was supposed to make us better than them.

What "rule" is that?
There were no such "rules" in the 1940s, all of that comes after the war.

And this agains comes back to understanding what war really is.
All who object to this or that on "moral" grounds DON'T understand it.
That war was about destroying entire peoples and ways of life, attempting to put "rules" on one side when the other refuses to comply is simple-minded at best, dangerously criminal at worst.

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh No, but Iraqi 'freedom fighters' could plant explosives in your living room. Would that be justified?

Rogan, your a pacifist, nothing about war is acceptable to you, why are you throwing these red herrings into the mix?

[Drogue]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Chris 62
Your suggesting the allies not do everything possible to win.
Do you REALLY understand what war is?
It's not a game, and it knows no rules.
By that reckoning, we'd all be using Nukes, nerve gas, and biolocical weapons. There are rules, the rule that if we do something, they will retaliate in kind. Moreover, should there be rules? I think that's what the international war crimes tribunal is for.

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Chris 62
The war was "effectively won" on December 7, 1941, when the US enters the conflict.
Why didn't Hitler surrender right there?
Because if we'd stopped bombing then, we would have lost. And it wasn't effectively won then. Hitler could have still won. However, in 1945, we had effectively won, and should not have still bombed civilians.

Originally posted by Chris 62
And this agains comes back to understanding what war really is.
All who object to this or that on "moral" grounds DON'T understand it.
That war was about destroying entire peoples and ways of life, attempting to put "rules" on one side when the other refuses to comply is simple-minded at best, dangerously criminal at worst.

By that reckoning, we should not have tried Nazi's for war crimes, as there are no crimes in war. We understand war, but we feel there are alternatives. We should have won without bombing civilians, which does not help our cause. You obviously believe that to win at all cost was the objective. What of the cost was annialation of the Planet? Or the death of millions more? If we destroyed all the rules, they would retaliate in kind, and we would all be worse off.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Rogan, your a pacifist, nothing about war is acceptable to you, why are you throwing these red herrings into the mix?

Red herring? Why isn't that a valid question? If they did that, would you consider it wrong? Would they be justified in killing innocent Americans, just because they did not start it?