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

[Sandman]

I'll post a more more full critique of Stalin later, but:

He failed to recognise the threat of German invasion, despite the huge warnings.

His refusal to consider retreat as an option allowed the Germans to repeatedly encircle and destroy Red Army units.

His brutality gave the Germans a temporary liberators bonus, and his secret police thought nothing of jamming the railways up with deportees, slowing the evacuation of workers and machinery.

He purged the Red Army of its innovative officers, and promoted his Civil War cronies, who attempted to turn back the clock and institute a WW1 style infantry/artillery combination, with tanks dispersed between infantry groups. The sort of tactics that had failed the French, who also had decent heavy tanks.

He was invisible for the first week of the invasion, hiding out in his villa.

[East Street Trader]

shawnmmcc, I am not dependant on written histories about some of this. My father was a bomber pilot in WWII.

He tells me that all who took part knew perfectly well that precision bombing was a fiction. The navigational equipment and bomb aiming devices were crude in the extreme. It was hit or miss whether you dropped your bombs over the right city, let alone the right general area of a target city. The notion that you could actiually aim at anything just sounded good as propoganda.

And the discussions about the the effect on morale of bombing cities are well documented - with full US involvement.

It was a man named Richard Portal who, on 25 August 1940, ordered bombing raids on German cities. Which led the German air force to retaliate by embarking on the blitz. This was good news for Britain at the time because before then the German air force had been concentrating on British air bases, to good effect.

The British raids were initially by small numbers and had to be at night because during daylight hours the German fighters were deadly. Losses - even flying at night - when my father was taking part were very high, fifty or sixty percent in every raid.

But by the time Harris had risen to the top the tide had turned and 1000 bomber raids were possible. The British still flew predominantly at night but the US had developed large bombers which, flying high and in formation, could fend off such fighters as remained to the Germans. The British and US air forces co-operated and developed area bombing expressly designed to maximise death and destruction. Briefly Churchill put a stop to that saying that it would result in the allies coming into control of an utterly ruined land.

I have asked my father how he and others felt about the notion that one of his bombs might - probably did - blow some baby to rags. He says that if he, or any of his comrades in arms had ever faced the certainty of doing just that none would go through with such a dreadful thing. But as it was none of them baulked at dropping high explosives and incendiaries on civilians.

There was express motivation for the selection of Dresden as a firestorm target - by US as well as UK high command. It was that Dresden had been, up to then, untouched and the town was full to overflowing with refugees fleeing the Russian advance.

I posted the numbers involved in the raid to illustrate the difficulties facing someone from the US, like Ned, who dislikes the wholesale roasting of large numbers of civilians but who hopes to distance the US from such deeds.

However that is something which has, for my own generation, been achieved rather otherwise. And again not through the writings of any apologist or revisionist. Rather by the publicatiuon of a picture of another civilian - a little girl - running down a Viet Namese road, her back coated in Napalm.

That military men of all sorts - whatever their nationality - regard roasting civilians as a perfectly proper incident of warfare could hardly be more clearly illustrated.

[Ned]

East Trader, Thanks for your posts, and thank you too, Shawn, for your eloguent posts referencing your horribly burned sister.

I have a hard time with this topic as I have a visceral reaction to it. I can hardly think of the victims of our raids without tears welling up.

Shawn is right that the US should be judged by its own, "higher" standard. It is not true, as Molly has contended, that all sides in this war accepted area bombing of cities as necessary, let alone ethical. Roosevelt had called for all sides to cease-and-desist attacking cities prior to US involvement. During the war, the American public was led to believe that we were attacking only military targets in our strategic bombing campaign. News of Dresden leaked out through Sweden. I don't know the precise date now. But when it did, it caused a huge negative reaction in the United States.

Apparently, from the quotes given above by the scientist who petitioned Truman not to use the atomic bomb, it was a shock to the American people to learn in June, 1945 that we had firebombed Tokyo and devastated an area of 4.5 million people. Some may have reacted that the Japanese deserved it. But clearly others reacted in the way that suggested that we were losing our moral focus; and this was important because we were in this war, not for Empire, not because our strategic interests were at stake, but for the purposes of morality. (Don't tell me about Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war. Roosevelt had all but forced the war on Japan and Germany prior to December 7, 1941.)

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned
we were in this war, not for Empire, not because our strategic interests were at stake, but for the purposes of morality. (Don't tell me about Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war. Roosevelt had all but forced the war on Japan and Germany prior to December 7, 1941.)

I know you hate the Democrats, but this is ridiculous. Only wild-eye conspiracy theorists believe that FDR planned Pearl Harbour. Germany wasn't forced to do anything.

The US was in WWII because was attacked by the Japanese and because of Hitler's stupidity.

[Mr. Harley]

East Street Trader, I'm not questioning the authenticity of your father's experience. So please don't take this as a challenge, but as a search for more info. Do you know any sources in the UK that document (i.e. quoting memos, etc.) the strategic decisions, after-bombing reports, etc. that back what your dad says? Without a primary source, people get into arguments over interpetation (professional historians make our arguments here look TAME). I'm genuinely interested in what's been published over in the UK that might not be readily available here, or some websites posting original material. Thanks.

Molly, I forgot. Thanks for that reference on those slave revolts, I'll have to get that book and read it.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
It was a man named Richard Portal who, on 25 August 1940, ordered bombing raids on German cities.

Who?

[Tingkai]

While doing a google search for Richard Portal, I came across this website that contains Canadian newspaper articles from WWII about British bombing raids.

http://www.civilization.ca/cwm/newspapers/operations/bomber_e.html

[Serb]

Originally posted by Sandman
I'll post a more more full critique of Stalin later, but:

He failed to recognise the threat of German invasion, despite the huge warnings.

His refusal to consider retreat as an option allowed the Germans to repeatedly encircle and destroy Red Army units.

His brutality gave the Germans a temporary liberators bonus, and his secret police thought nothing of jamming the railways up with deportees, slowing the evacuation of workers and machinery.

He purged the Red Army of its innovative officers, and promoted his Civil War cronies, who attempted to turn back the clock and institute a WW1 style infantry/artillery combination, with tanks dispersed between infantry groups. The sort of tactics that had failed the French, who also had decent heavy tanks.

He was invisible for the first week of the invasion, hiding out in his villa.

Blah..blah..blah...
I heard this Khrushev's sh!t a thousand times already.


"Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU emphatically said that Stalin fought the "war globally and not on the front"! Stupidity of this utterance immediately brought denials, demands of apology by the living Generals, Marshals and front-line fighters during the Great Patriotic War. Nevertheless, this Khrushchev version up to this day prevails, supported by scores of "historians," all of them writing volumes upon volumes of lies and not having any trouble financing their books, etc., etc.

The biggest lie is that Stalin did not know when the war started, got panicky, locked himself up at the dacha outside of Moscow, was getting senselessly drunk for one week, taking himself away from every facet of governing, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

In reality, everything was much different.

JUNE 22, 1941 -- Politbureau and Stalin at its head worked on the text of the speech to the Soviet people, which was delivered by Molotov, giving directives, commands on mobilization of other civilians to the ranks of Red Army, announcing the appointment of Marshals and Generals of different fronts, etc.

JUNE 23, 1941 -- General Central Command was established.

JUNE 24, 1941 -- Emergency meeting of the leaders of Industry to plan the war output. Held in the cabinet of Marshal Stalin.

JUNE 25, 1941 -- Reserve Army was formed under the command of Marshal Budyonny.

JUNE 27, 1941 -- Decision of the CC All Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to mobilize Communists and Komsomol members.

JUNE 29, 1941 -- Directives of the CC AUCPB to broadcast the speech of Stalin on July 3, 1941. After that, the meeting of the Politbureau with the General Command of the Red Army.

JUNE 30, 1941 -- Establishment of the State Defense Committee with Stalin as its head.

Documents of these days give the lie to the vicious lies of Khrushchev.

The most prevalent lies about Stalin is that in 1937-1938 years, the army was decimated with purges and that Stalin purged and killed 300,000 commanders and political commissars. These falsehoods and lies should look at the known facts, that the Red Army had only 140,000 commanders and political commissars in total.

In the magazine "Young Guard" (1989 -- #9) there was published a document taken from the archives of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, which was presented at that time to Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov and Beria on May 5, 1940, that in 1937-1939, 36,898 commanders were dismissed from the ranks of Red Army. More than 75% of them were retired because of their age, sickness, moral grounds (drunkenness) and unworthy of service in the Red Army. From August of 1938, there was working a commission which was told to look into these cases and make recommendations. More than 30,000 requests were received by those dismissed to look into their appeals. In January 1, 1940, this commission returned to their posts more than 12,461 commanders, from those 10,700 were formerly dismissed for political reasons and now put back into ranks.

Do not forget that there were hidden enemies of the Red Army inside the CC CPSU and did their dirty work.

In the above listing of numbers in the Red Army, let us not forget that there were thousands of former Tsarist officers, who were accepted into the Red Army by Trotsky, in whose ranks were Tukhachevsky, Yakir, Uborevich and others. Most of them harbored their lost class interests and were hidden enemies of socialism, although there were hundreds who became loyal Army Officers in the Red Army and fought valiantly against the Hitler Hordes. "

[Ned]

Originally posted by Tingkai


I know you hate the Democrats, but this is ridiculous. Only wild-eye conspiracy theorists believe that FDR planned Pearl Harbour. Germany wasn't forced to do anything.

The US was in WWII because was attacked by the Japanese and because of Hitler's stupidity.

Me hate Democrats? I loved the presidencies of Kennedy, FDR and Polk. I only wish more Democrats were like these folks. If they were, I certainly would call myself a Democrat today.

No, I was not suggesting that FDR knew in advance about Pearl Harbor. What I was suggesting is that Roosevelt forced both Japan and Germany into conflict with America. He did this even though no strategic interests of the United States was directly threatened by Japan or Germany. The reason FDR did this was that he was fundamentally opposed to aggressive war.

[Alexander's Horse]

Stalin was directly responsible for the disasters of 1941 and 42.

It was only when he let the Red Army professionals do their job that the Soviet Union started to win battles.

Stalin was no military genius.

[Tingkai]

Well, I wasn't going to respond to Patroklos' lies and rants, but what the hell.

Originally posted by Patroklos
I understand that when you are wrong it is a good tactic to avoid addressing your critics and to continue ranting, but everyone here has called you out on it, especially your SS comment.

This is certainly a perfect description of what you have done in this discussion about the "chivalrous" SS. You have repeatedly been called out to back up your claim that:
"The Waffen SS... did not just commint [sic] atrocities. They fought bravely and chivalrously for a cuase [sic] they truely [sic] believed." -- page two of the previous thread.

Instead you go on a rant by called me a lair, when I have not lied. You owe me an apology, although I doubt you are mature enough to admit your mistake.

You lied (or to give you the benefit of the doubt, you got things completely wrong) when you wrote:

Originally posted by Patroklos
You MISQUOTED the WSSOB, egregiously, were caught and then LIED about it when confronted.

I never quoted the website WSSOB. Here's what I wrote about the website author:
He also claims the Waffen SS were civilrous (sp?, I'm drunk and can't be bothered to spell it right).

Note the absence of quotation marks. That's called a paraphase, not a quote.

You then went on a rant by pointing out the website says "sometimes chivalrous" rather than just "chivalrous". Do you know the meaning of the phrase "splitting hairs".

I responded by saying: Yeah right. I said the website claims the SS were chivalrous. The website, as you have shown, claims the SS were "sometimes chivalrous". Same diff.

It is obvious that I did not lie as you claimed.

By the way, if I said "Bob sometimes does good deeds" then it is the same as saying "Bob does good deeds". Same diff. Get it?

Note that this is different from the faulty logic of saying sometimes cats are white therefore all cats are white. In the Bob example, "sometimes" qualifies the action, while in the cat example, "sometimes" qualifies the subject (cats).

Your rants have also included:
- Listing names of books and websites, and then claiming the titles, by themselves, prove your argument;
- Hypocrisy: Attacking others for not providing evidence (your post to Serb) when you refuse to provide evidence.
- Denials ("I could very easily qote [sic] from Beevor's book, but I feel no need to..."]
- Naming a book/website and falsely claiming that it proves the Waffen SS were sometimes chivalrous, when it does not.
- Listing irrelevant sources (eg, Death by Government)
- Listing irrelevant information (the number of non-Germans in the Waffen SS says nothing about whether they were chivalrous)

Then there are the just strange comments like:
[QUOTE] Originally posted by Patroklos
It was your quote that stated the SS were "sometimes chivilrous," not mine.
[QUOTE]
No, you provided the quote from the website. Remember? You went on a rant because I only wrote "chivalrous" instead of "sometimes chivalrous"

Originally posted by Patroklos
I also quoted about 30 lines of statisical data from the WSSOB concerning foreign nationals serving in the SS. So the next move is yours, to find your own source that says the opposite.

I don't need to find something that says the opposite because I have never claimed the opposite.

Originally posted by Patroklos
I could very easily qote from Beevor's book, but I feel no need to untill you provide SOMETHING, anything to back up your claim. That the SS is evil to the corps, to include every individual in it. No exceptions, good luck!

Patroklos: I can't believe I have to explain this, but I guess I do. The Waffen SS was not a typical military unit composed of men from all parts of a society. The Waffen SS consisted of people who believed in Nazi ideology. They believed that Aryans were the master race and that Slavic and Jewish people were sub-human. They believed that communists were evil. They believed that killing these people was acceptable. It is impossible for a person to believe this crap and be considered chivalrous because chivalry is about being fair and treating people decently.

The members of the Waffen SS supported an ideology that was unjust and inhuman. In other words, an ideology that was the opposite of chivalry. Therefore, they could not be, and were not chivalrous.

[Mr. Harley]

What Ned states about FDR and instigating the US involvement in WW2 is well documented, especially concerning Nazi Germany. FDR was supplying war materials (obsolete destroyers, etc.) clearly identifiable as coming from the US. He then ordered modern US destroyers to escort British merchant vessels carrying war materials halfway accross the Atlantic, and attack any German U-boats that attempted to attack them. The Kriegsmarine had to specifically warn their U-boat commanders NOT to fire back at US destroyers that were depth-charging them, the situation had gotten so bad.

FDR was in violation of several neutrality laws, and may have also been in violation of the constitution itself - no declaration of war, the that vs. the powers of the commander-in-chief have been argued ad infinitum. In fact he was one of the first modern presidents to so expediantly use the commander-in-chief authority to flout the will of congress, and the people of the US, who were still largely isolationist. One of the reasons the Nazis declared war was the fact the US had been shooting at them for over a year. They were waiting for an excuse, and a good opportunity.

FDR had read Mein Kampf, if my memory serves me correctly, and realized the threat Hitler presented. He still dangerously expanded the power of the executive. He was right, but he actually committed an impeachable offense (deliberately violating the neutrality laws). This doesn't change the fact he was right, but it puts him in context as someone, who certain of his rightness, was willing to put the constitution at risk. Some have stated he was the first imperial president. Enough agreed that he is the one president who scared the politicians enough to pass a constitutional amendment!

Japan was slightly different. The US was attempting to contain them, and there are some memos to the affect that either economically crippling them, or instigating a war with them, were both acceptable results to US policies. What the US didn't realize was, due to a variety of factors going back to Commodore Perry, but mostly since 1900, that this war was pretty much inevitable to domestic developments in Japan, and the threat the Japanese perceived the US to be, and the humiliations they felt they had suffered in part due to US policies. FDR WANTED war with Germany, and wasn't going to turn down one with Japan.

[East Street Trader]

shawnmmcc, try "Bomber Command" the memoirs of Arthur Harris.

My father has a book which collects together a set of short reminiscences from folk who served in bomber command. If I remember I'll note the title and publisher when I visit next Saturday. I have skim read it and do not remember much about strategic discussions. But it gives graphic illustration of the proposition that no one could possibly have thought that precision bombing was real.

The need to invent precision bombing as a propaganda fiction is clearly illustrated by Ned's post. And by the fact that Harris himself became so reviled that he had to leave the UK and settle in S. Africa.

It is an aspect of war that those who lead put to use all and any weapon that lie to their hand. They also feel wholly justified in seeking to control the information which reaches the public. Commonly that involves exaggerating losses inflicted on the enemy and minimising set-backs. My father used to hear BBC reports of RAF losses suffered in a raid and he could account for the whole of the loss described just among his own squadron. Despite half a dozen squadrons having taken part. But it also involves suppressing things which would not go down well with the squeamish.

This is just exactly as true of countries which are ordinarily democratic as it is of full blown dictatorships.

Ned - I think the whole world felt much as you do when the picture of that little girl was published. The rejection of the Viet Nam war on the part of people everywhere, and particularly the young, influenced me enormously in the sixties. It is the only case I know where public disgust forced political leaders to bring a war to an end. And I thought at the time that the power of propaganda had been broken by the vigour of modern journalism. But my optimism has faded. There is a generation now who do not have parents and grandparents who fought in major wars. They do not have a horror of war. Instead patriotism once more rules the roost.

And I think this matters (even more than it has) because I judge the single most pressing challenge currently facing the human race is the absolute necessity of making a war between nation states impossible.

If that is not achieved I cannot see how there can be a future for life on earth.

[Mr. Harley]

East Street Trader, I almost agree with what you said about war between nation states. The problem is the whole "nation state" bit. We've had some argume... uh disagreements among the US posters concerning our "States rights" issues, and whether the will of the people should be the final arbiter or governmental bodies, and which of those take precedence, state or federal.

The problem is that, just like my abortion argument with Ben, the nice clean theortical instances get very muddy in the real world. Lets take two opposite cases, the United States and North Korea.

North Korea is a dictatorship, it's actually a cult-state, much more akin to the Hitler dictatorship in Nazi Germany. It starves it's people to the point they had to drop the minimum height requirement for draftees to, get this, 4 feet 2 inches (single source, so I won't swear to it), they've bombed civilian airliners, kidnapped foreign nationals off of beaches, etc. Obviously part of the axis of evil, and a government that most of the world would like to see fall. The United States is obviously a democratic state with protected individual rights. But wait.

How about Communist China? Nobody can argue that over the last two decades the leadership has done wonders, getting the birth rate down to a sustainable level, developing a hybrid economy (for SMAC players - Police - Planned becoming Free - Wealth ), and taking China into a modern, industrial world. Yet it is an oligarchy, and they have nuclear weapons. They washed Tianemen Square in blood to stay in power.

If the dictator(s) do good by their country, or has nuclear power, is that what lets them pass muster. Do we just respect any leader who seizes control of the instruments of power for the nation state? If we don't, where do we draw the line between the two extremes? North Korea, Iraq, the Congo, Rwanda while the Hutu dictatorship was in control? If they are genocidal, like the Sudan, or do we include ethnic cleansing, and deny protection to the nation state status of Turkey for it's treatment of the Kurds.

So lets then censure countries that deny equal status to minorities. What about the Mohawk nation in the US (native Americans to this day get hideous treatment by the law enforcement/judicial communty, and have the highest rate of incarceration of any identifiable minority in the US)? So I've come full circle.

Sanctions don't work, unless it's the case of a democratic minority that gets tired of the reduced standard of living, i.e. South Africa. Look at my sig. It typically has little effect on dictators. Plus, whether it's Haliburton in the US, or French and German companies, we let our commercial interests trump human rights.

I don't have any good answers, but stopping war as an end in itself, without first guaranteeing human rights, and the rights of ethnic minorities from the tyranny of the majority, is a dangerous step. You could just as likely condemn millions, if not billions, to lives of limited, or no freedoms while they are cultural exterminated. I think it takes a measured, thoughtful response (not George W. Bush - a deaf man in a room full of blind people or was it the other way around). GB's steps with Scotland and Wales are a good start, I just wish we would do the same with our Native American groups here.

Oh, I am very aware of the inaccuracy of what gets past the censors in a war, there's a book "The First Casualty..." or something very close to that talking about the press and the truth in time of war. I will read "Bomber Harris". I had assumed (dirty word) that it was a typical autobiographical whitewash. I am really interested in that collection of reminiscences. Now I have two - three books to read.

[Sikander]

D'oh!