German atrocities in WWII, systematic or just like everyone else?

[Tingkai]

This is for the continuation of the discussion started on the "What do you think is the baddest ass piece of military hardware? II" thread.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=2636041&t=3334#post2636041

[BeBMan]

Of course they were (mostly) done systematically, and not like everywhere else. This is however no excuse for other atrocities....

[BeBMan]

Oh, and other atrocities could also be systematic.

[Saras]

Systematic.

But you are a sneaky ***** in phrasing the question - no one argued that Germany as a state was NOT systematically eradicating entire groups of people.

I for example said that there were, in fact, chivalrous acts and acts of sheer bravery, born from love of "Vaterland" or other motivations that are not sinister in essence. You in turn painted the WHOLE german nation with one black brush, ridiculing a book you HAVEN'T read just because it was written by a Waffen SS soldier.

[Dr. A. Cula]

Of course they were systematic. Germans are, by nature, a very organised people. Everybody talks about german concentration camps, for instance, as they were very well documented by the germans themselves. Few people know that Hitler actually imported this "technology" from Stalin, who did the same things, but with less compromising documents.
However, this doesn't make German atrocities worse than others, just more neatly planned.

[Boris Godunov]

Any survey of history will force you to arrive at the conclusion that the Nazi massacres were par for the course. Yes, they were more systematic than others, but welcome to the modern age where computers and other information technology made such systems possible. IBM provided state-of-he-art technology for cataloging the butchering.

Acknowledging that the Nazi holocaust wasn't so extraordinary in relation to the world's history of bloodshed in no way diminishes the horror of the crimes. It should, rather, cast a damning eye on humanity on a whole and all the societies (which amounts to every civilization) that has committed such nightmarish acts.

[Patroklos]

An actually continuation of the previous thread woutld be Soviet apolgists and delialists.

No one on that thread even remotely suggersted that the Nazis should not be held in contempt, just that the Soviets are on the same bar and for some odd reason people are willing to overlook them. Or in the case of the two over there deny anything ever happened.

[East Street Trader]

It is nonsense to say that there is any other example in human history of groups of people running into millions having been rounded up, taken to places designed for the purpose and there exterminated.

There are instances of racial hatreds which have caused and continue to cause comparably large numbers of deaths (when aggregated over time) and there are instances of comparably large numbers of people dieing incidentally to the mass movement of peoples or to the achievement of some other purpose. Stalin's land reforms and the deaths among soldiers and civilians as the Germans and then the Russians advanced on the Eastern Front in WWII spring to mind.

But the holocaust is unique in the clarity and single mindedness of its motivation as well as its execution.

That this should have taken place in Germany - whose people have produced much of the world's finest music and much of its most penetrating philosophy is something over which I, among many others, have puzzled (to no particular effect) for decades.

[Patroklos]

Hardly,

The Mongul hordes slaughtered millions in India becasue they were a "waste of life," and ask any Russian or Chinese historian if the 10s of millions the horde killed there did not have any racial conotations. Caesar in Gaul killed 10 million in as many year as WWII. Hitler has his reputation becasue he was the most visible to the current genertions, and of course it is recorded for posterity in a manor that no other has ever been. The Soviets an Mao killed more poeple, and that is a fact, but they simply kept it under wraps better. Is that their get out of jail free card? I hope not.

Now genocide is another thing, and true Nazism has the deservedly infamous title of the worst in that category. However, killing innocent people is killing innocent people, genocide bieng no worse just a more organized manifestation, and it is not always organized. Genocide in Cambodia was hardly as organized as political murder in the Soviet Union or China. It is a diservice to the victims of other holocausts to down play their suffering becasue their oppressors malice was not in the form of a genocidal platform.

[Ben Kenobi]

But the holocaust is unique in the clarity and single mindedness of its motivation as well as its execution.

Agreeing with Boris here. People seem to think that something needs to be unique or special in order to be acknowledged an atrocity. It does not diminish the horror of the Holocaust by making comparisons to other forms of genocide but rather serves to illustrate a repeating theme in human society.

whose people have produced much of the world's finest music and much of its most penetrating philosophy

Have you read Heart of Darkness? You will find some insights there, into the nature of 'civilisation'.

[BeBMan]

Well, I think East Street trader has a point in so far that I don´t wonder much about mass killings in ancient or medieval times, but more in modern times, after developments like humanism, enlightenment, or the idea of human rights.

Of course "killing innocent people is killing innocent people", no doubt.

But I think Trader didn´t want to down play the suffering of other victims, but he wanted to make clear the intentions of the Nazis to wipe out an entire people. It is therefore IMO easily defensible to see unique elements in the Holocaust.

[JimmyCracksCorn]

Originally posted by BeBro
Well, I think East Street trader has a point in so far that I don´t wonder much about mass killings in ancient or medieval times, but more in modern times, after developments like humanism, enlightenment, or the idea of human rights.

Of course "killing innocent people is killing innocent people", no doubt.

But I think Trader didn´t want to down play the suffering of other victims, but he wanted to make clear the intentions of the Nazis to wipe out an entire people. It is therefore IMO easily defensible to see unique elements in the Holocaust.

Easily defensible? You're going to argue that in not one instance of history has a leader wanted to wipe out a particular group of people and done so? Think harder.

And numbers don't matter either. 10 people dead or 1 million, its the same intention.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn


Easily defensible? You're going to argue that in not one instance of history has a leader wanted to wipe out a particular group people and done so? Think harder.

And numbers don't matter either. 10 people dead or 1 million, its the same intention.

Re-read my post

[Ecthy]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
And numbers don't matter either. 10 people dead or 1 million, its the same intention.

Must... resist... stalin quote...

[molly bloom]

Some atrocities were pre-planned, systematic, some were ad hoc, responding to immediate circumstance, or turn of fate.

The infamous Kommissarbefehl or Kommissar Order, for instance, singling out certain military units for death even after capture. The ideological instructors of the Einsatzgruppen and S.S. were issued with a booklet 'The Subhuman' by the orders of S.S. Standartenfuhrer Gottlob Burger, which taught that the Slavs were not essentially human beings, with the habits of vermin (a similar tactic to that used first against German Jewry).

The Gestapo shot en masse Soviet prisoners of war, the Waffen S.S. massacred Russian civilians, and the S.S. tried to ensure that no ordinary German soldiers fraternized with Slav civilians.

Patroklos- I'd like to see a quote for the ideological intent of the Mongols in India- yes, they massacred inhabitants of cities that held out against them, or cities or peoples that revolted, but they also saved artisans, artists, engineers and scientists.