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

[Mr. Harley]

How about the Spanish conquest of Hispaneola? There's a reason there is almost no native American blood left on the island - the Spanish exterminated them, and had to import slaves. The United States genocide of the Native Americans, while not as industrially systematic nor as rapid (impossible given the technology of the time), included (in California) government sanctioned human hunting (aka Planet of the Apes) and massacres of peaceful villages (because the hostiles knew not to trust the white man and were harder to find) as in the Salt River Massacre, which was done by a politician to gain votes! He was defeated, but never charged with murder. Many Germans rightfully make a point that they do a better job of teaching the next generation about the evils perpetrated by their own country than the US does. They have a point. Ask Native Americans if you want an alternative view.

[Serb]

Originally posted by Hurricane


Where did you get these figures? The whole population of Gaul was like 3-4 million during Roman times.

Perhaps there:

[Heresson]

Ye old good Serb's wit

[Serb]

You don't like the picture Heresson?

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
How about the Spanish conquest of Hispaneola? There's a reason there is almost no native American blood left on the island - the Spanish exterminated them, and had to import slaves. The United States genocide of the Native Americans, while not as industrially systematic nor as rapid (impossible given the technology of the time), included (in California) government sanctioned human hunting (aka Planet of the Apes) and massacres of peaceful villages (because the hostiles knew not to trust the white man and were harder to find) as in the Salt River Massacre, which was done by a politician to gain votes! He was defeated, but never charged with murder. Many Germans rightfully make a point that they do a better job of teaching the next generation about the evils perpetrated by their own country than the US does. They have a point. Ask Native Americans if you want an alternative view.

In the Spanish case, and without trying to hide the brutality that Spanish and other european people did in these times, there was also a problem with diseases. The native Americans had serious problems fighting the European's diseases that the conquerors bring to the islands/the mainland.

[Bereta_Eder]

Systematic. And the sad truth is that Germany couldn't have such pwoer if the crushing majoreity of the then population weren't Nazis. Nothing's black and white but that's one occasion where it comes very close to being that.

[Drake Tungsten]

Well the IJA brutality was certainly bad but it was more feudal than modern and more by accident than design in some cases (like mistreatment of POW's). So I don't think it's in the same class as the sleak modern German murder machine.

The chilling difference is Nazi horrors were always intentional, meticulously planned, industrialised and used the latest technology. This is what sets them apart and troubles thinkers so much - modernisation was supposed to overcome barbarism and irrational atavistic hatred but the Nazis showed this wasn't true.

Exactly.

[mrmitchell]

AH is correct

[Lefty Scaevola]

Nazi/German troops atrocities were mostly systemic and by design, at least in France. Without orders for atrocity, the Wehrmacht was among the most disciplined forces dealing with occupied civilians. Its often brought to the attention of USA officers in france in 1944 that the liberaters were more likely to indulge in private theft, murder, and rape than were the conquerors/occupiers. Unless one village or other group was officialy targeted for repreisals, demolition, or anti guerilla action, the local French had little complaint about the occupiers. However the official saction atrocities of the Germans were many times as deadly as the activity of private crimminals in USA and CW forces in France. The Germans appear to have been much more inclinded to unofficial atrocity, as well as official atrocity, in the East.

[GePap]

Well, the nazi regime was fighting an ideological war, speically out East- that separetd it from all other players who were in it for more cotidian reasons. Certainly the soviets had some organized attrocities, and I would say the Japanese at best purposely turned a blind eye to some attrocities beign committed (like what happened in Nanking).

[Mr. Harley]

Yaroslav, I don't know if you know the history. When they resisted, the Spanish systematically cut off the hands of every male on the island they could catch. That's about as systematic, and brutal, as it gets. It remaind me hideously of the rape, pillage, THEN burn joke about the dumb Viking. However, I doubt the natives of Hispaneola would find it amusing. The Spanish did learn, instead working most of their slaves to death after that, those that didn't starve or die of disease.

Disease left the Native American populations without the reserve to fight the war. Their populations were already down due to disease and then they lacked European's technology. Whether it was organized "Injun hunts" in California, political massacres, or just systematic extermination (Hispaneola) its brutal and as systematic as the respective cultures got. I'm talking context, given what could be done at the time.

As a quick aside to Jews and atrocities, some American individual with a sense of righteousness and justice, but absolutely lacking in the common (sense, that is) put Holocaust survivors in charge of internment camps full of actual and suspected Nazis while the US figured out what to do with whom, and determined what level of war crimes to prosecute. The camps were absolutely brutal. If I had survived and my wife and little girl had died at Beltzen, I would have done the same damn thing. I'm not a nice person.

Reference the Japanese and their brutality simply being medieval, I disagree. I have read extensively on the period (a good one to start is "Japan's War" by Edwin Hoyt, told from the JAPANESE veiwpoint). They had been indoctrinated just as thoroughly with a modern, debased so-called version of Shinto that the government had been teaching since the 1920's, predating the Hitler Jungen by a decade. So you had essentially most if not all of the soldiers serving as regular ground troops coming out of this government indoctrination - if that's not modern, and systematic, tell me what is?

Part of that debased Shinto included Emperor worship, but the other part stressed Japanes racial superiority over, not just the Caucasians, but also over other Asiatics. Thus the Japanese soldiers, and also the mid-level officers, found absolutely nothing wrong with the massacre of civilians. I strongly suspect that you found more opposition and fatalism concerning the Holocaust among the Germans, especially domestically, than you found in Japan concerning the army atrocities there. It wasn't as systematic, instead it was casual like squashing a bug. Plus the Japanese simply neither had the beauracracy or the resources to engage in anything with the completeless of the Holocaust.

However, the numbers were horrific, and remember that Japan never came close to occupying all of China. From wikipedia: "Chinese suffered much worse, losing approximately 3.22 million soldiers. 9.13 million civilians died in crossfire, and another 8.4 million as non-military casualties." We're talking a level of casual brutality not seen any else in the world, most of the 8.4 million died as slave labor or were just killed whenever any Japanese soldier decided to, from a private to a general. Both they and the Nazi were utterly horrific, and I agree with the previous posters, especially if you are part of the targeted people, it doesn't make much difference whether it's German industrial extermination, Injun hunting in California, or watching your daughter gang raped until death, after which the Japanese soldiers bayonet everyone in your village.

[Boris Godunov]

I read "Infantry Aces" and "Panzer Aces," both books by Franz Kurowski [sp] which detail the intimate personal accounts of German soldiers during the war, both Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS. Also, a while ago I read "Soldaten," which is mostly comprised of letters and journal entries.

The Kurowski books are bit dry, but I was struck by how similar they were to the books I've read about American and British GIs' personal experiences. On the Eastern front, the German soldiers are afraid of the Russian soldiers, seeing them as almost monsters. This is largely due to a lot of propoganda. But they're also horrified by the Soviet willingness to send their own men to certain death in wave after wave against the German machine gun batteries. Many of the soldiers are described as being visibly sickened by the carnage. There's one story of how a German lieutenant and his team sneak to the Russian side of the lines to take out a pill box. On they way, they encounter a Russian sentry and knock him unconscious. After they've finished the mission and return to base, they remember the Russian and where they left him. Knowing he'll freeze to death, the lieutenant and one of his men go back and get the Russian, bringing him back as a P.O.W.

Of course this doesn't prove much in a global sense of the war, no. But I'm also reminded about the stories of U.S. and British troops murdering German P.O.Ws. It seems to me the major difference is that the Nazi powers-that-be let such things happen sans consequence, even encouraging the worst in soldiers who were already under the strain of war. The Allies, however, had official restraint (not counting the Soviet counter-offensive), so soldiers just couldn't get away with such enflamed reactions. In other words, the stress of war brings out the worst in many soldiers, and in a structure where they are given free reign to indulge their basest instincts, they will do so.

I also agree that the IJA's atrocities can't be dismissed as simply having a "more primitive" mindset. The Japanese government certainly encouraged the notion that all non-Japanese were subhuman, as shawn mentioned. I don't think there was much difference between them and the Nazi regime. Japan never went to the technical tour de force for genocide that the Nazis did, no, but they made up for it in their zeal for massacre.

[yaroslav]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Yaroslav, I don't know if you know the history. When they resisted, the Spanish systematically cut off the hands of every male on the island they could catch. That's about as systematic, and brutal, as it gets. It remaind me hideously of the rape, pillage, THEN burn joke about the dumb Viking. However, I doubt the natives of Hispaneola would find it amusing. The Spanish did learn, instead working most of their slaves to death after that, those that didn't starve or die of disease.

Disease left the Native American populations without the reserve to fight the war. Their populations were already down due to disease and then they lacked European's technology. Whether it was organized "Injun hunts" in California, political massacres, or just systematic extermination (Hispaneola) its brutal and as systematic as the respective cultures got. I'm talking context, given what could be done at the time.

I wasn't saying that there is no shame in that kind of actions of the Spanish conquerors, I'm only pointing that I believe that disease is the main reason of indias extintion in La Hispaniola, with a population that get down from some hundred of thousand people in 1492 to around 500 in 1548.

[GePap]

Originally posted by yaroslav


I wasn't saying that there is no shame in that kind of actions of the Spanish conquerors, I'm only pointing that I believe that disease is the main reason of indias extintion in La Hispaniola, with a population that get down from some hundred of thousand people in 1492 to around 500 in 1548.

That it dropped so fast was mainly the work of disease, BUT spanish actions were what decimated the leftovers so decisively, and why there were no natives left in Hispanola 100 years later.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


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.
.

so ben, i take it you havent read Fackenheim yet, have you?