Remembering the Nanjing Massacre

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Saras
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it the rearguard ss and gestapo committing the atrocities? I kinda find it hard to imagine a frontline PzKfW 4 crew getting out to shoot some civilians - they were too busy dodging AT gun fire.

I agree to an extent. Even many of the SS were foreign volunteers who served solely in combat units. However the Germans tended to execute a lot of civilians (part of the problem with occupying a huge area and acting like a bunch of pigs), and this might well fall on troops of any echelon to do, whether they were SS, Wehrmacht or whatever. You are probably correct in thinking that a Panzer crew would not be asked to do this when there was so much infantry around.

[aaglo]

History teaches that we don't learn from history - George Bernard Shaw

[Goingonit]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
In the mid-'80s, our great President, Ronnie, decided it was time to forgive and forget, and went to lay a wreath at an SS war dead cemetary "because they were victims too."

In a bar in Flint, Michigan, a yet to be famous Michael Moore was hanging around in a bar with his buddies, and they were complaining about this. After all, some of their fathers had fallen fighting these guys. So one of the guys and Mike hopped on a plane to Germany, and just as Ronnie was getting ready to put down the wreath, they unfurled a banner saying that they were there to protest their president laying a wreath at his father's murderer's graves.

Well, the West German police were about to beat them bloody when the press all turned towards them (having been alerted by Mike beforehand they were gonna pull this stunt). Needless to say, Reagan and Kohl were terribly embarrssed by this, as well they should have been.

Never forgive. Never forget. Hunt these SOBs down, even on their death beds and drag their asses to trial to pay before all humanity for their crimes.

Thank you Chegitz, I'm now morally conflicted again.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by aaglo
History teaches that we don't learn from history - George Bernard Shaw

that is true,

nevertheless we should not honor the killers, or the ones who were sent (ordered) to kill. Goes the same for everyone, mass-murderers in 'normal' society, just ordinary killers, or conquering army. The fact that Spanish might have hailed the conquistadors as heroes does not prove they were not wrong.

Hopefully we as society have developed today to recognize that our countrymen sent to kill in past generations (by crazy politicians) were doing the wrong thing, and do not deserve to be praised for doing wrong. Their acts should be dishonoured if anything, and we should do the correct thing and never repeat their mistakes.

That is what the Japanese should be taught, but their governnment is obviously too proud to admit it.

[MOBIUS]

By far the majority of the German armed forces were innocent of crimes against humanity. Those crimes that were committed (of which there were a great many!!!), were in the vast majority of cases, committed by Gestapo and SS formations, penal battalions etc...

To say that the entire German army was guilty is preposterous - it's like saying that each and every member of the german race is easily capable of atrocities, which is a very dangerous thing to say!

As for all German soldiers being complicit in Genocide/atrocities etc, I also think that's false - your average German soldier probably thought he was fighting a just war, with God on his side...

He probably knew nothing about the extent of the atrocities in the concentration camps - for the most part he was probably blissfully unaware of the SS liquidation units following on behind him...

Then there's the sickly clever propaganda and national brainwashing carried out by Hitler and Goebbels, firstly pulling at the German sense of nationalism to create a desire to recapture their old territories from the treaty of Versailles, then there was the race card with racism against the Jews and the Slavs and finally there was appealing to the average soldier's instinct for survival - "attack before we ourselves are attacked..."

The only despicable thing there was the aspect of racism! But even with that in many cases the allies also were guilty of racism in the manner they interned many thousands of Japanese-Americans, or in the way that the US had segregated black units...

The sad fact is that back then, the scourge of racism and to a lesser extent class, were much more acceptable!

Finally you also have to consider the acts of genocide and actrocities committed by the allies such as the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the deliberate Firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo - that's several Nanking's worse of dead civilians right there...!!!

Or even the destruction of Monte Cassino, killing many Italian women and children when it wasn't even occupied by German forces...

Or the daily atrocities committed by the Red Army against it's own population, let alone it's enemies - Stalin's evil easily matched Hitler's, he was just less insane and didn't have to answer for his crimes!

I think Germany is right to honour it's dead, they are human beings like you or I, and deserve respect accordingly.

As for the Rape of Nanking and the other long list of atrocities, we should stop our double standards and insist that Japan apologises in full for it's war crimes!

By not extracting that apology, we make a mockery of the memories of Nanking, and even in a way those of the German atrocities, because it is shown that the punishment one nation (Germany) but not the other (Japan) is not sincere - but political!

[Urban Ranger]

Unit 731 (aka "Black Sun") was a biological warfare unit of the IJA. Based in occupied Manchuria, they performed experiments on POW's and captured villagers by infecting them with various diseases, mainly bubonic plague.

The most repulsive thing they did, however, was dissecting their victims alive to see what kind of effcts these diseases have. The soldiers called their captives "round logs" to show that they weren't considered humans, just guinea pigs.

One of these soldiers just happens to be here recounting history and renouncing his own past.

[Ted Striker]

Here's a page with pictures of the tragedy:

PROCEED KNOWING THE PICTURES CONTAINED ARE *EXTREMELY* GRAPHIC

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Fortress/1955/nanking-pics.htm

[Urban Ranger]

Here's another Web resource:

Nanjing Atrocities

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Goingonit
Thank you Chegitz, I'm now morally conflicted again.

Just doing my job.

Mobius, many of the attrocities in the Eastern war were carried out by German regulars, at first. The massive effect it had on the moral of the troops was one of the reasons why the Germans switched to special units to carry out the massacres, and then the death camps.

Outside of the East, German regulars carried out extensive brutalities. France was especially hard hit for reprisals by the Army because of the Communist resistence.

It wasn't just the soldiers, either. My great uncle was a B-24 Liberator pilot. His bomber was shot down over Germany, but the entire crew bailed out and safely landed, where upon my uncle was beaten to death by civilians. The rest of the crew was saved by the German authorities.

[Richard Bruns]

War is hell. And despite the twisted opinions of Americans who call it a "good war," World War 2 was the most hellish of them all. Inhuman atrocities were committed on all sides. The only differences between Americans and British and the rest is that our mass murder was conducted from 12,000 feet in the sky, and in a manner far more calculated and efficient than the bloodbaths committed by bround troops. The impersonality of delivering death from a pressurized cockpit shocks us less than the atrocities on the ground, but the end result is the same.

The general staff of our army air corps knew exactly how and where to hit cities to cause as much death as possible. The typical modus operandi of a firebombing raid over Japan was to send in a few planes with high explosives to knock out the water mains, and firefighting capability, and then right behind them send planes loaded down with incendiary weapons. The bombing deliberately targeted the flammable residential areas, and the air strikes were coordinated in such a way as to create a firestorm. This hellish phenomenom occurs when fire gets so intense that it sucks in oxygen from the surrounding areas with winds equivalent to a hurricane. This fans the flames, making them even more intense, and it doesn't die out until everything is consumed. Witnesses reported that people were burned alive simply by the heat, turning into ashes that were blown away by the wind before the body fell to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of Japanes civilians met this fate as a matter of US doctrine.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are rather small Japanese cities. The main reason they were chosen was because all the larger ones had already been toasted. Nuking Tokyo would have done nothing more than make the rubble and ashes bounce; the firebombing had done such a thorough job of destruction that there was nothing left worth hitting with a nuclear weapon.

I'm suprised that the Japanese don't appear to be harboring a massive grudge against us. The percentage of civilians they lost to air raids is probably far greater than the percentage of civilians they killed in occupied territories. They were systematically killed as a matter of official US army policy.

Perhaps they have out the past behind them and expect others to do the same. They don't seem to be complaining about what they suffered, and perhaps that is why they don't understand why others should complain.

America has not and probably will not apologise for our atrocities against the people against Japan. How then can we fairly expect them to apologize for the actions of their soldiers?

Despite all of this, I have nothing but respect for the vast majority of veterans on all sides. Most of them were good people before and after the war, and most of them were also drafted into the army. Perhaps the supreme horror of war is that it makes monsters out of young men who simply want to serve their country and protect their families.

I do not have any problem with honoring the American airmen who flew missions over Japan, nor do I oppose honoring the frontline German soldiers who gave their lives for their country.

When I was in Germany, I saw the little war memorials in all the villages. Small towns of 300 or so would have a memorial in front of the church listing the village boys who died in each war. There would usually be about 30 for World War 1 and another 30 for World War 2. I had no problem with this. I understood the pain and loss of of the town. This was not a memorial for aggressors and criminals, and I and my family did not see it as such. It was a way to honor the sacrifice and mourn the loss of children, brothers, and fathers who were ripped out of their lives and drafted into a war they did not start or understand.

[Natan]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
By far the majority of the German armed forces were innocent of crimes against humanity. Those crimes that were committed (of which there were a great many!!!), were in the vast majority of cases, committed by Gestapo and SS formations, penal battalions etc...

Refuted by chegitz, but I might note that there have been several books and an exhibition in Berlin about the many atrocities committed by regular German soldiers.

To say that the entire German army was guilty is preposterous - it's like saying that each and every member of the german race is easily capable of atrocities, which is a very dangerous thing to say!

Um, I don't see how those statements are even vaguely related, especially since no such thing as a German race exists except in the mind of Nazis.

As for all German soldiers being complicit in Genocide/atrocities etc, I also think that's false - your average German soldier probably thought he was fighting a just war, with God on his side...

He probably knew nothing about the extent of the atrocities in the concentration camps - for the most part he was probably blissfully unaware of the SS liquidation units following on behind him...

False. Most Germans knew. For example:
One of the experimental camps was set up near a school in Germany. A teacher wrote a letter to the government complaining that the students were aware of what was going on and were disturbed by it.
The smoke from the furnaces at Auschwitz and elsewhere could be seen from some distance, and many polish farmers used the ashes from the camps to fertilize their fields - these ashes often had human bones sticking out of them.
Other letters have been found with comments like "The trains are running all night. Those Jews [in the cattle cars] don't let you get any sleep."
In fact, even people outside new that the Germans were killing millions of Jews and others, and I'm sure that every soldier was aware of the Nazis brutal extermination of towns and villages, Nazi radio bragged of it.

Then there's the sickly clever propaganda and national brainwashing carried out by Hitler and Goebbels, firstly pulling at the German sense of nationalism to create a desire to recapture their old territories from the treaty of Versailles, then there was the race card with racism against the Jews and the Slavs and finally there was appealing to the average soldier's instinct for survival - "attack before we ourselves are attacked..."

The only despicable thing there was the aspect of racism! But even with that in many cases the allies also were guilty of racism in the manner they interned many thousands of Japanese-Americans, or in the way that the US had segregated black units...

No comparison - the Japanese-Americans are alive and well today and IIRC they even recieved compensation - 20 million innocent people were murdered 1939-45.

The sad fact is that back then, the scourge of racism and to a lesser extent class, were much more acceptable!

Everyone knew murder was wrong, MOBIUS. And even if they didn't, that's no excuse.

Finally you also have to consider the acts of genocide and actrocities committed by the allies such as the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the deliberate Firebombing of Hamburg, Dresden and Tokyo - that's several Nanking's worse of dead civilians right there...!!!

Or even the destruction of Monte Cassino, killing many Italian women and children when it wasn't even occupied by German forces...

Or the daily atrocities committed by the Red Army against it's own population, let alone it's enemies - Stalin's evil easily matched Hitler's, he was just less insane and didn't have to answer for his crimes!

I think Germany is right to honour it's dead, they are human beings like you or I, and deserve respect accordingly.

Yes, respect as human beings, not as brave soldiers or people who did anything good - their service was a disgrace and enabled mass murder.

As for the Rape of Nanking and the other long list of atrocities, we should stop our double standards and insist that Japan apologises in full for it's war crimes!

By not extracting that apology, we make a mockery of the memories of Nanking, and even in a way those of the German atrocities, because it is shown that the punishment one nation (Germany) but not the other (Japan) is not sincere - but political!

Trust me, it's quite sincere, it's just that people care less about crimes which happened to someone else. That's one thing the last 50-60 years of history have taught us.