Churchill war criminal, says German historian

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Tripledoc


I have never heard that the Germans had a deliberate plan to 'farm out' productive capacity to civilian areas in order to shield manfucaturing from area bombing. I would need a source on that.

Try "Dirty Little Secrets of WWII" and Albert Speer's book "Inside the Third Reich".

So I am thinking this. Remember the German Economy did not reach full mobilization until 44-45. Until then it been an army characterized by professionalism and technological superiority. Far from the bombardment being an act of insane revenge there was 1) political calculation behind it. Socializing the German workers into army life and impress them with further authoritarianism 2) In order to secure against a communist countercoup in future occupied territories in Germany. 3) The bloated German workers army was mostly employed in the east against the Red Army in a morbid numbers game. Thus the threat of the Red Army completely overrunning the European market could be averted.

Oh come on. There is no way that the allies could have been able to predict or control Nazi command policy. This is just plain paranoid rambling.

Futher points
1) The allies demanded unconditional surrender. Why?
2) The allies were fully aware of the German concentration camps, yet these were not bombed, neither were the railroads leading to them. Why?

1) The Allies left Germany to deal with the postwar itself after WWI and look what happened. The demand for "unconditional surrender" was the best thing to happen to Germany since the discovery of ores in the Ruhr basin.
2) Bombing the railroads was considered, but FDR felt that at best the allies would only marginally hold up transportation into the camps and might even stimulate them to speed things up, or to simply shoot the ews where ever they found them. Bombing the camps would simply have made the allies co-conspirqators, as the type of bomber capable of reaching that far into Nazi Europe was not accurate enough to pick off guard towers or barracks. Next I suppose you'll ask why they didn't use laser guided bombs.

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
I have never heard that the Germans had a deliberate plan to 'farm out' productive capacity to civilian areas in order to shield manfucaturing from area bombing. I would need a source on that.

They even had a weapons system for it, the He-162 Salamander.
Many of it's components were made "cottege industry" style, with final assembly to be in factoris.

http://www.vectorsite.net/avhe162.html

I was under the impression that the Germans experimented with the building underground factories. Especially in the area of producing socalled retalliatory weapons such as the V1 cruise-missile.

They did indeed.

Also - another thing pointed out by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith is that the area-bombing of workers quarters - and it is significant that it was workers quarters- actually helped the German war machine in the last spasms of mobilization during 44-45.
People who had been not particularily loyal to the regime now found that their livelihood was destroyed. this he claims actually meant that the German army and the Volksturm militias were the only institution were homeless and jobless men could be fed and clothed.

Most people to this day don't understand that the only target that the allies hit that crippled Germany was TRANSPORTATION.
They tried Aircraft factories, ball-bearings, Oil, manufacturing, none of this worked.
It was only by destroying Germany's railnet that they really crippled the Reich, Germany relied heavily on Coal for industry and home heating, with rails large areas of Germany could not operate, industries such as snythetic oil was serverly damaged by the lack of coal (After Ploesti fell to the Russians, snythetic fuels were all Germany had), and what stocks they had could not be moved quickly to where it was needed.
Battlefield accounts of the German armed forces show this quite clearly, opprotunites to counter-attack were lost time and again due to fuel shortages.
Germany produced 25,000 fighters in 1944, but it could not train pilots for them, or even use many of them for lack of aviation fuel.

So I am thinking this. Remember the German Economy did not reach full mobilization until 44-45. Until then it been an army characterized by professionalism and technological superiority. Far from the bombardment being an act of insane revenge there was 1) political calculation behind it. Socializing the German workers into army life and impress them with further authoritarianism 2) In order to secure against a communist countercoup in future occupied territories in Germany. 3) The bloated German workers army was mostly employed in the east against the Red Army in a morbid numbers game. Thus the threat of the Red Army completely overrunning the European market could be averted.

This an attempt to proscribe modern motivations to WWII events, that were not considerations in the 1940s.
I doubt any of this ever even crossed the minds of Harris nor Hap Arnold, let alone Churchill.

Futher points
1) The allies demanded unconditional surrender. Why?

To avoid a repaet of the WWI mantra "We was robbed!", that esentially was Hitler's most popular postion.

2) The allies were fully aware of the German concentration camps, yet these were not bombed, neither were the railroads leading to them. Why?

The bomber commands were not, and it must be remembered they were looking to shorten the war, they hit Rails regualrly late in WWII, starting in 1944.
Also, untill the camps were physically over-run, much of the intelligence was not believed (The home government was convinced the poles were lying, trying to get increased allied weapons drops with outragious claims) at the highest allied levels.
Another factor is that Churchill was not a dictator, he had to answer for military operations, and bombing targets in Poland required Russian help, even heavy bombers could not make the round trip from Britain carring any kind of bomb load, it was beyound a Lancaster or a Flying Fortress.
Only by landing in Russia could this be done effectivily.
Russia ONLY permitted this in 1944, and then for a LIMITED time (and they DIDN'T defend the airfields, they were raided by the Luftwaffe, and a number of Flying Forts were destroyed on the ground).

[Rogan Josh]

Some people here seem to be taking the position that it was OK for the UK to do whatever they liked in WWII because the Germans 'started it'. Anything at all to win the war seems acceptable.

In that case, when the US finally attacks Iraq, will Iraq be justified in doing anything at all to win the war? Will it be OK in your eyes for them to kill innocent women and children? After all, they won't be the ones 'starting it'.....

[germanos]

Originally posted by UberKruX


please correct me and fill me in as you see fit:

Dresden was a cultural center for germany that the alled forces fire-bombed to cinders. was there any industry there? rumors of any industry? any reason other than terrorism to bomb it?

thanks in advance.

Dresden was targeted to see if Bomber Command had understood the fire-storms after the bombing of Hamburg. There, after extensive bombing, fire-storms occured. Bomber Command was intrigued by it, and they looked for ways to create such a devestating event on purpose.

After some attempts to create fire-storms, which failed to create the desired effect, it was thought that previous bombing of the targets had had an 'undesired' effect on the calculations made to create a fire storm.

To make sure their 'test' would not be influenced by external factors, they choose a thusfar untouched target. Since Dresden had not been bombed since it had no strategic value, it was perfect for this goal.

This time it worked.

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Have they appologized about Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry, London, Warsaw......

So what? Surely you're not suggesting that it was okay for us to do it if they did it?

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Anything that stopped Nazis was a good thing, BTW.

by late 1944, with these bombings still going on, the war was already effectively won.

[zulu9812]

Originally posted by Chris 62
War is a crime Che, once it comes, rules go out the door when fighting scum like the Nazis or Imperial Japan.

Remembering the rules is what was supposed to make us better than them.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by zulu9812


by late 1944, with these bombings still going on, the war was already effectively won.

20-20 hindsight is great, isn't it? Not much comfort when you're being hit by V2's on a daily basis, however.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
In that case, when the US finally attacks Iraq, will Iraq be justified in doing anything at all to win the war? Will it be OK in your eyes for them to kill innocent women and children? After all, they won't be the ones 'starting it'.....

Uhhhh...... Since the war will be fought on Iraqi soil are you suggesting that they might start killing their own women and children? Wouldn't that be about as silly as the sheriff taking himself hostage in "Blazing Saddles"?

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


Uhhhh...... Since the war will be fought on Iraqi soil are you suggesting that they might start killing their own women and children? Wouldn't that be about as silly as the sheriff taking himself hostage in "Blazing Saddles"?

No, but Iraqi 'freedom fighters' could plant explosives in your living room. Would that be justified?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp


20-20 hindsight is great, isn't it? Not much comfort when you're being hit by V2's on a daily basis, however.

Dresden was bombed in Feb. 1945. The war was over, we knew it was over. The V2s weren't hitting London daily. They were very sporadic at this point in the war.

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by zulu9812
So what? Surely you're not suggesting that it was okay for us to do it if they did it?

Your suggesting the allies not do everything possible to win.
Do you REALLY understand what war is?
It's not a game, and it knows no rules.

by late 1944, with these bombings still going on, the war was already effectively won.

The war was "effectively won" on December 7, 1941, when the US enters the conflict.
Why didn't Hitler surrender right there?

Remembering the rules is what was supposed to make us better than them.

What "rule" is that?
There were no such "rules" in the 1940s, all of that comes after the war.

And this agains comes back to understanding what war really is.
All who object to this or that on "moral" grounds DON'T understand it.
That war was about destroying entire peoples and ways of life, attempting to put "rules" on one side when the other refuses to comply is simple-minded at best, dangerously criminal at worst.

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh No, but Iraqi 'freedom fighters' could plant explosives in your living room. Would that be justified?

Rogan, your a pacifist, nothing about war is acceptable to you, why are you throwing these red herrings into the mix?

[Drogue]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Chris 62
Your suggesting the allies not do everything possible to win.
Do you REALLY understand what war is?
It's not a game, and it knows no rules.
By that reckoning, we'd all be using Nukes, nerve gas, and biolocical weapons. There are rules, the rule that if we do something, they will retaliate in kind. Moreover, should there be rules? I think that's what the international war crimes tribunal is for.

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Chris 62
The war was "effectively won" on December 7, 1941, when the US enters the conflict.
Why didn't Hitler surrender right there?
Because if we'd stopped bombing then, we would have lost. And it wasn't effectively won then. Hitler could have still won. However, in 1945, we had effectively won, and should not have still bombed civilians.

Originally posted by Chris 62
And this agains comes back to understanding what war really is.
All who object to this or that on "moral" grounds DON'T understand it.
That war was about destroying entire peoples and ways of life, attempting to put "rules" on one side when the other refuses to comply is simple-minded at best, dangerously criminal at worst.

By that reckoning, we should not have tried Nazi's for war crimes, as there are no crimes in war. We understand war, but we feel there are alternatives. We should have won without bombing civilians, which does not help our cause. You obviously believe that to win at all cost was the objective. What of the cost was annialation of the Planet? Or the death of millions more? If we destroyed all the rules, they would retaliate in kind, and we would all be worse off.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Chris 62
Rogan, your a pacifist, nothing about war is acceptable to you, why are you throwing these red herrings into the mix?

Red herring? Why isn't that a valid question? If they did that, would you consider it wrong? Would they be justified in killing innocent Americans, just because they did not start it?