Churchill war criminal, says German historian

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Tripledoc


The German Lufwaffe's bombardment of enemy capitals was done to apply significant shock-value in forcing the respective governments (soon to be incorporated in the German economy) to surrender. It was the use of force for specific political ends. The Poles and the Dutch did promptly surrender. However abhorrant it might be this actually worked, unlike the bombardment of German cities which did not work - but perhaps benefited German expansion of the army and militia .

So are you saying that deliberate terror bombing is OK if it achieves its goal, but not if it fails? You know, as part of the de-nazification process Germany really has to stop teaching this kind of Nietzchean social Darwinism in its schools.

What I said was that the British war effort mobilized in the beginning. By that I mean it fully mobilized in 1940 - while the German did so in 1943. (Note that navy and airforce personel is not included in the following)

Germany deployed its entire standing Army and called up its entire reserve Army and deploy. In any sane military textbook that's called full mobilization. They began wageing strategic warfare in the air and on the seas from the beginning. That's what is generally known as "total war".

[chequita guevara]

No, I think he's trying to say that the targets of the bombing were different. The Allies and Axis bombed each others' cities in order to target the populations. In Warsaw and Rotterdam, the populations were targetted in order to get the governments to surrender. I can see that there's a slight difference, but that doesn't make the bombins any less a war crime.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
British policy was imperialistic in that they engaged in war with Germany in order to keep their own empire. In this they failed, but let us not think that the Western powers had anything other than pretense when they claimed to be fighting for freedom.

I don't see how coming to the aid of beleagured Poland can be construed as an attempt to keep the empire intact. If maintaining the empire was Britain's primary aim it would have made more sense to let the Polish campaign slip by, restrain the French, then diplomatically encourage the Germans to engage the Russians in an attempt to let the two of them neutralize them. Quite a number of high ranking Nazis were vocal in their beliefs that Britain and Germany ought to have the same aims with respect to eastern Europe. A truely Machiavellian British empire bent on self-preservation would have tried to chanel the Nazis towards their self-destruction.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
No, I think he's trying to say that the targets of the bombing were different. The Allies and Axis bombed each others' cities in order to target the populations. In Warsaw and Rotterdam, the populations were targetted in order to get the governments to surrender. I can see that there's a slight difference, but that doesn't make the bombins any less a war crime.

Did the Germans contact the Polish and Dutch prior to the raids and say something to the effect: "Here's a sample of what's going to happen if you don't surrender right now?" No. They bombed and it just happened that those governments were already on their last legs anyway. These bombings were done to cause mass hysteria in the cities and that's exactly what happened. Do you think that the British and Americans didn't have at least some hope that their bombing raids would cause the population to pressure the German government into surrendering?

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove

Germany deployed its entire standing Army and called up its entire reserve Army and deploy. In any sane military textbook that's called full mobilization. They began wageing strategic warfare in the air and on the seas from the beginning. That's what is generally known as "total war".

Yet German industrial base continued to expand, while the UK did not to the same degree.
Either the Germans were capable of pulling a 'double whammy' or the UK were not putting much of an effort into it.
Or the German economy had simply not fully mobilized - or reached the end of it all until 43-44.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I don't see how coming to the aid of beleagured Poland can be construed as an attempt to keep the empire intact.

Just because a flag doesn't fly over the country doesn't mean it isn't a colony. Britain had heavily invested into Poland and a German occupation would have meant a loss of a market for British goods as well as British capital in Poland. Czechoslovakia had a similar relationship with France. The war had less to do with high and mighty ideals and a lot to do with Germany trying to horn in on French and British commercial interests.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The war had less to do with high and mighty ideals and a lot to do with Germany trying to horn in on French and British commercial interests.

The French, English, and Soviets were each trying to contain the rise of a regional hegemon. Commercial interests were of a tertiary concern.

[chequita guevara]

They could easily have contained him at any point up to late 1939. Furthermore, had the West meerely signed a the mutual defense pact the USSR was begging for, then Hitler would not have gone into Poland, at least not for a few more years, and by the then Soviets would have been ready to counter him.

At first France and Britain hoped that Germany could be bought off with crumbs from their empires, but it soon became apparent that Germany was seeking a global re-alignment of empires, it wanted an empire of it's own, and that had to come from someone.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Just because a flag doesn't fly over the country doesn't mean it isn't a colony. Britain had heavily invested into Poland and a German occupation would have meant a loss of a market for British goods as well as British capital in Poland. Czechoslovakia had a similar relationship with France. The war had less to do with high and mighty ideals and a lot to do with Germany trying to horn in on French and British commercial interests.

I'd like to see proof of this 'heavy British investment' in Poland. As far as I'm aware, British investment in Central and Eastern Europe was declining as Empire protectionism was the order of the day. In 1932 in Ottawa, the Dominions and Great Britain reached agreement to establish an imperial economic bloc safeguarded by quotas and tariffs. In 1939, almost half of the exports from Great Britain went to Empire destinations and in return cheap foodstuffs went to 'the Mother Country' leaving British consumers to spend the excess on cheaper family cars and radios and other exciting consumer goods.

In point of fact, until March of 1939, relations between Poland and Great Britain were distinctly cool, in part because of the Polish state's lack of scruple at snapping up the Teschen territory from Czechoslovakia during that state's Nazi dismemberment and distrust of Poland's wily foreign minister Beck- who had fought Tsarist Russia on the German side in WWI.

Polish requests for financial assistance amd military aid were actually turned down or reduced- instead of an asked for credit of 50 million pounds to buy goods in Britain, the British gave only a nugatory 8 million pounds. Only until after September 7th a week after Germany struck at Poland, did Great Britain eventually agree to make cash sums available. By which time of course, it was all too little, too late.

Poland was (correctly) perceived as greedy, chauvinist, anti-semitic and illiberal in France and Great Britain, and the Polish ambassadors in London and Paris reported such a distinct feeling of froideur and even outright hostility on the part of their hosts, that they doubted any assistance would be forthcoming from the West in the event of a war with Germany.

[Sava]

I think you guys are forgetting about the crudeness of the bombing technology of the day. They couldn't necessarily choose to single out military targets. They could only blindly bomb towns in order to cripple the infrastructures. Churchill and FDR saved democracy, this German historian is fulla sh!t.

[Sava]

Che, don't you dare even suggest that Hitler could have been contained... perhaps you need to stop and think about what you're saying.

[Ned]

According to the Axis leaders themselves, the US bombing of the Ploesti oil fields and the US's later bombing of synthetic fuel plants was the greatest single contribution to the defeat of Germany by bombers. Second was the US bombing of the ball bearing plants. Third was the US bombing of railroads.

The British night bombing of cities seemed to have no substantial effect on German war production. It did, however, kill a lot of "innocent" German civilians and made the Germans fight harder out of rage - not unlike the Brits who also fought harder when their own cities were bombed.

If "revenge" is a legitimate justification, then perhaps both the Brits and Germans were justified in targeting each other's cities. However, we see today what long term damage to post-war relations such a strategy brings.

I would also like to point out once again that the US dropped leaflets on targeted Japanese cities warning them of impending attack. I understand that this included the cities that were attacked with A-bombs. Obviously, the leaflet campaign did not work effectively as hundreds of thousand of Japanese civilians died in the campaign. However, our objective was not to kill Japanese civilians, but to burn out their war production.

In contrast, both the Germans and the Brits seemed rather intent on killing large numbers of the other's populations. To me, both should be condemned.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Ned
However, our objective was not to kill Japanese civilians, but to burn out their war production.

Keeping strictly within the supposed economic justification of using the atom bomb. To my mind Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hardly the centres of Japanese war production which I think was centered further north around Tokyo on the eastern seaboard.
From a purely economic perspective the application of nuclear capability on Hiroshima and Nagasaki made sense, because they were not that important for the American war production capability once Japan had surrendered to be incorporated into the dollar economy.

[Ned]

Tripledoc, We started bombing Japan just as we did in Germany -- high altidude precision bombing of war production.

But the attacks had little effect because Japanese war production was diffuse and their buildings made out of wood. The firebombing was intented to burn out the war production; but the leaflets were intended to save civilian lives.

By the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was very little left of Japan. All the major cities had been destroyed and we were slowly working our way down the list of smaller cities. So, it made no difference if they were a major war production target or not. They were among the largest targets left.

[Main_Brain]

Second was the US bombing of the ball bearing plants

Actually that Bombing came years too late as the industry already was disconcentrated/spread by A. Speer. If it had happenend 1940 The War would've been much shorter.