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

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Your posts negate the presence of evil whatsoever.

yup, that was pretty much the point.

If evil is merely what others think of someone, how then do you account for such atrocities as have appeared in this thread?

i dont know what you are saying.
But, i will say that what you think is evil another may find sacred. I mean, you think the holocaust was evil, right? an extremist neo-nazi could find that very same act (the one you find extremely evil) holier than holy and worship it everyday. So what is it? Evil or holy? it is either-or, depending on your perspective.

Would you go to a Jew and tell him that the Nazis are only evil because the Jews believe they are evil? That to another person, neither nazi nor Jew, their actions could be good?

again im not quite sure what your saying. but yes, the nazis actions could be seen as good. maybe not by you, or me, but it is naive to think how we define right and wrong, good and evil, to be the absolute definition

Just because we do not believe our own actions to be wrong, it does not make them so. We can hurt people in many ways especially when we believe that we are in the right.

what does that have to do with anything? who said hurting people was wrong? As frimly as you believe that hurting people is wrong, i am sure there is another being somewhere in this universe that thinks hurting people is a holy act. I mean, i bet you think human sacrifice is a barbaric act right? I bet you think that is dispicable. But, you know what? Just because you THINK that, doesnt mean that it is so. Some people happen to think otherwise

[Serb]

Originally posted by Patroklos

Soviet Gulag (1917-87)
-Executions during collectivization, etc.
61,911,000
* ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

What a crap. Do you have sence of logic? Can you think? Can you make calculations?
I doubt, because otherwise you wouldn't repeat this absolutely stupid figure.
This figure is good for morons who can't think and make simple calculations. I can tell you where some bullsh!ters can take similar number.

The population of Russian Empire in 1897 (without Poland and Finland)- 117 133 500

The population of Russian Empire in 1914 (without Poland and Finland)- 162 890 200

162 890 200 - 117 133 500= 45 756 700

45 756 700/17=2 691 570.5

So yearly population growth was aproximately 2.6 millions.

1941-1914= 27 years

27*2.6=70.2 -

162,89+70.2= 233.09

So population of Soviet Union in 1941 should have been 233,09 millions, but in fact the population of Soviet Union in 1941 was only 195.4 millions!!!

So, every bullsh!ter makes conclusion- THE REST WERE KILLED BY SOVIETS!!!
233,09-195,4=37.69
And typicall bullsh!ter start to shout: I'm a gineus!!! Between 1914-1941 Soviets KILLED 37.69 MILLIONS of THEIR OWN PEOPLE!!!

(As you see you can't get your absolutely stupid, ridiculos, insane, idiotic figure of 61,911,000 even using such stupid, ridiculos, insane, idiotic aproach every bullsh!ter use to maximaze number of people killed by Stalin. You can't because it's pure mathematics, and Soviets can't killed so much people, because they never had so much people).

Furthermore, this 37.69 millions figure that every bullsh!ter can gain using such omniscient aproach, is pure bullsh!t also.
Because:
In 1914 Russia was a properious Empire, but next years bring a disaster for it. World war one, civil war, foreign intervention, hunger and epidemies took 10,3 millions of Russian lives. And from demographic point of view most valuable lives- people of reproductive age, mostly young males.
After those years of disasters, Russia wasn't a prosperious Empire anymore. The country LAID IN RUINS. edited: As result of Civil war, MILLIONS of Russians migrated to the west.
All those events at least halved the population growth, and decreased population number.
If you'll take this into consideration, you'll see that the fact that population of Russia since 1914 increased with 43.1 millions and was 195.4 millions in 1941 (with average yearly growth of 1.6 million) it's VERY good result.

Nazi State (1933-45)
-6 mil Jews, 5 mil Poles, 10 mil others
20,946,000
***** *****

Another proof of sh!tiness of your sources.
10 mil others
Where is 26,6 millions of Soviet people killed by nazi during invasion in Soviet Union? Only about 10 millions of them were soldiers, the rest were civilians.

More probably it's my last reply to you. You don't want to know truth. Keep living in your fantasy world.

[Serb]

Originally posted by molly bloom


Uh, this is a gross simplification- for a better breakdown of the figures see S. Maksudov, 'Losses Suffered by the Population of the U.S.S.R., 1918-1958' in 'The Samizadat Register' ed. R. Medvedyev,publ. London, 1981, also M. Ellmann, S. Maksudov, 'Soviet Deaths in the Great Patriotic War: a note', Europe-Asia Studies vol. 46, no.4 (1994) pp. 671-80*

I have no idea who is S. Maksudov, but "Samizdat" sounds pretty funny- it means "self-made bullsh!t". I wouldn't trust much to that kind of source. Roi Medvedev is well-known bullsh!ter whose figures and pure lies were criticized thousand times.

Which gives a gross total (median estimate) of 54 million.

Molly, the problem of your "western" society is that you don't want to know truth. You already have "truth" that you need- Soviets killed millions and were evil freaks, now some morons even adds to this that they were even more evil than nazi.
In your "advanced", "democratic" society you never print books that show thing in a bit different light. You do not need other point of view about this subject, because you already made up your mind. You don't print books of authors who try to make objective research, and prefer to print books of any bulldh!ter who says about dozen of millions of people killed by Stalin (the greater the number, the better for you). I doubt in any of your countries the book of Yuri Mukhin "The murder of Stalin and Beria" was ever translated and printed. You don't need such books. And it's pretty accurate translation- it's about murder, "historical murder" (if I can say so) of Stalin, committed by Khrushev.
Anyone who have different opinion about our, (DAMN, WHEN THE HELL YOU'LL UNDERSTAND THAT IT"S OUR HISTORY! IT'S OUR ANCESTERS SUFFERED DURING STALIN'S TIMES, NOT YOURS. AND WE AS NO ONE ELSE WHANT TO KNOW TRUTH ABOUT THOSE TIMES) history, you call Stalin apologist or red as$ commie.

[Bereta_Eder]

Serb
Nothing else needs to be said

[Bereta_Eder]

it's always funny the "agloamerican" propaganda against bad "commies". They HAD to make you look like freaks so they could justify their shortcomings and still unpayed crimes. The funny thing is that some actually believed or (gasp!) still believe that propaganda. Logic has no place in those people's reasoning.

[Mr. Harley]

I think Molly says it very well, reference the history that shows the US at its worst. As a footnote, the atrocities in the Phillipines were a continuation of the policies/attitudes that helped lead to the genocide of the Native Americans, the "savages" and "primitive" attitudes, and that as they were less than human, well, it was alright to slaughter them. Virtually no country, at least of any size, has a clean history as to that regard (I say virtually because sombody here will find the exception to the rule ).

Ned is exactly on point about the US bomber campaign in Europe, and also what we did in Japan. Americans DIED because the US felt that indiscriminate bombing of civilians was wrong, as a policy that impacted all the way to our bomber design. Please note that by 1945 that policy was growing a bit threadbare, but even then we dropped the leaflets, AT RISK to the bombers dropping those (meaning we had Americans die to help save someone elses civilians). Even then, as Ned notes, it was the PEOPLE of the US, and the fear of it, that helped reinforce our leaders decision to drop the leaflets. That is the difference between representative government and a totalitarianism. The latter don't care.

He and I had a disagreement on the nuclear bombs, with him actually arguing dropping them was wrong, and I made the argument that it was a BAD (best available data) decision. We agreed to disagree, and until I get the transcripts of the cabinet meetings which document the actual info given to Truman, we'll stay in that status.

Kramerman (thread hijack warning to everyone else), there are absolute standards of wrong and right. It's called ethics, which attempts to create a self-consistant system without relying on sacred writings, which obviously lead to disagreement. Ethics and morals (which are largely based on sacred writings) overlap, but at the same time have some critical differeneces.

Ethically, for example, almost any act imposed on another, who has done nothing whatsover to you, is unethical. Your human sacrifice statement is nonsensical. Ethically, if the person being sacrificed can truly give willing consent, and then chooses to do so, then it is ethical. However, you will find the majority of cases concerning human sacrifice anything but willing.

Some religious types would say "but I am self-consistent." The problem is that they parse their argument. They might say for example, "I want this law imposing this morality on everyone, and I'm being ethical because see, I don't mind this rule imposed on me, I follow it anyway because I'm a good XXXX" versus "I wouldn't mind someone imposing a religious law I disagree with on me, because they are doing it out of conviction." I have found over the years that the one of the best inidicators of inconsistant, unethical behavior is that when you use an example of the latter type, the person pushing morality versus ethics says "But that's different." The problem is that ethics are much more difficult than morality.

[notyoueither]

Actually, pattycakes, we also listened to survivors. Yes, some of them lived and made it to the West.

[Bereta_Eder]

oh spare me that, commonwealth subject

[Bereta_Eder]

you have and had an agenda. the absolut hilarity ensues when trying to equate nazi mosntrocities with the SU. Even clowns can laugh with that assertion. While accomodatenlgy keeping silent about your own many many crimes and against people other than your own. your game was well known 50 years ago and still is today

[Serb]

Originally posted by notyoueither
Actually, pattycakes, we also listened to survivors. Yes, some of them lived and made it to the West.

Yeah, sure, all these former nazi collaborators, SS soldiers or white immigrants are great and unbiased sources of knowledge about Soviet atrocities.

Yeah, right.

[Bereta_Eder]

commonwealth,
"your" figurateively used of course. we're just making light "conversation".

[Serb]

Originally posted by Patroklos
In referance to some of the failed economic plans that have been mentioned, I would like you to imagine what would happen if Bush implemented a 5 year plan that killed 10 million people. Do you think most would blame Bush? Do you think that blame would pass on the the Republican party as a whole? Now imagine if that plan was so ludacris that everyone knew it would kill millions, but you forged ahead anyways for some ideological utopia you dream of (acceptable losses for utopia right)? The only differance between that and other mass murder is the methods, the ends remaint he same. It isn't an excuse for the Soviets or Communist Chinese.

The goal wasn't an ideological utopia. The goal was simple- SURVIAVAL. YOU sieged young Soviet epublic and forced Soviets to be cruel. Soviet Union was alone against the rest of the world. Without cruel Stalin's industrialization and collectivization we wouldn't SURVIVE as nation. Germany would crush USSR easily if those sucrifices weren't made.

[Bereta_Eder]

meanwhile US/UK was "protecting freedom" by supporting the most brutal dictatorships imaginable. Nice going there too. The sad part is that nothing has changed except peoples' ability to counter that too.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Ned


Yes. I think this is the case, although I am not sure about Nagasaki.

Hiroshima was a major exception to the prior rule of dropping leaflets.

Consider, that the major attacks on Japanese cities occurred after Dresden and the huge negative reaction of the American people when they learned what happened. By then, the government knew that it could not deliberately target women and children and justify it in any way to the American people.

Thus, when Truman announced the use of the A-bomb, he said that we had attacked a "military base." He could not tell the people what really happened.

Are you making this up as you go?

There were warnings dropped only starting late in the bomber campaign against Japan (July 27, 1945). That was long after the first night time, incendiary bombing of Tokyo (March 9, 267,000 buildings destroyed, 80,000 dead) and many other Japanese cities. Note the raid on Tokyo was about 3 weeks after Dresden (Feb. 13).

So yes, for the last 2 weeks of the war, leaflets were dropped. Big freakin' deal!

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Serb

Yeah, sure, all these former nazi collaborators, SS soldiers or white immigrants are great and unbiased sources of knowledge about Soviet atrocities.

Yeah, right.

Actually, Ukrainian survivors of the famine. Yes, many of them fled West when given the chance during the interegnum of Soviet rule. Some of them were hauled West as slave labour to Germany too. Yeah, slave labour... Nazi collaborator. Tell yourself whatever gets you through the night, bud.

It's really unfortunate when not all the witnesses are killed, isn't it?