Allied atrocities during the Second World War >>MOD WARNING POST 80<<

Manach

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote: »

it is believed that over 750,000 German POWs died of deliberate neglect after WW2

To add to that, the civilian casualties in the 1944/45 upheavals due to population migration amounted to 500,000 according to post-war statistics gathered in the 1950s.

R.Dub.Fusilier

Manach wrote: »

To add to that, the civilian casualties in the 1944/45 upheavals due to population migration amounted to 500,000 according to post-war statistics gathered in the 1950s.

i heard a good quote the other day on TV and it goes something like this, " no flag of patriotism is big enough to cover the body of an innocent civilian" probably a bit wrong but if anyone has the correct quote please put it up.

Reekwind

Shredder66 wrote: »

Did we? Well that's excellent but I wouldn't say too many knew about it, whereas everyone knows about Holocaust rememberence day...

I don't know why Nazi apologists seem to think that everyone else is equally ignorant. Who hasn't heard of Allied atrocities? Who still thinks that the Soviets were a bunch of cuddly innocents led by Uncle Joe? Even the proverbial man in the street has heard of Dresden

By the time I'd finished Junior Cert history I'd already learnt of the horrors of Bomber Command (Hamburg in particular), Katyn and dekulakisation. Not to mention the GULAG, concentration camps in S Africa and myriad other colonial/Bolshevik crimes. Yet apparently this part of the Junior Cert course is somehow hidden history that's been deliberately glossed over?

The fundamental difference between these crimes and the Holocaust is not that the victors won. Many German crimes are relatively unknown in popular knowledge (hence the persistent myth of the 'good Nazi' or the 'fighting SS man') with Nazi crimes in the East still being a relatively specialist topic

What is unique about the Holocaust, why it has such resonance, is the degree to which it horrifies in its scale, its motive and its execution. These three strands (six million dead, genocide and industrial mass murder) have come together to create what is effectively the benchmark for modern mass murder. Or at least that's my take

What I can assure you that it is not is some (Jewish?) conspiracy to downplay Allied crimes while emphasising those of the Nazis. The latter get more 'press time' simply because they were demonstrably worse

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote:

IMO the Russian comitted more war crimes and are responsiable for millions more innocent deaths than the Germans.

I really hate this claim because it has trickled into popular history (admittedly with the aid of some Cold War academics) while being entirely false. To quote from a very recent thread:

The latest estimates as to the total number that died under Stalinism are approx 8-9 million; 6-7 million of whom died during the famine of the early 1930s (which was not man-made). Even if we take that top figure then the Nazi regime, in a shorter period, killed significantly more civilians than the Stalinists - at least 8 million deliberate killings, without including the tens of millions of Soviet civilians who died under occupation

Perversely, the idea that [anyone] can stand up here and even suggest such a thing is the result of the hysteric and politically tainted Cold War histories that assigned fantastic totals of 20+ million deaths to Stalinism. These figures are unsustainable in the light of archival evidence, as driven by the likes of Wheatcroft, Davies, Ellman, etc. Yet [people] have the gall to charge that Soviet crimes have been 'glossed over' when a generation of largely US academics has been systematically exaggerating them

donaghs

Memory Of 98 wrote: »

All I hear is talk of camps and ovens, I hate to inform you all that the British actually pioneered what we understand as the concentration camp.

Tens of thousands of Boer woman and children exterminated in British concentration camps in South Africa, in an attempt to eradicate the Boer people.

They didn't. It shares the name "concentration camp". But it was basically an interment camp, to hold people in one place for monitering, and stop them from aiding the enemy. Clearly this idea wasn't "invented" in 1900 by the British. Some say the earliest recorded use of such tactics was by the Russians in the 18th century against Polish rebels. The US forced relocations of Native Americans to holding areas and Reservations also shares some similarities. Just before the Boer War didn't Spain use similar tactics in Cuba, and the US in the Philippines?

I don't believe there is any evidence that the British planned the camps to exterminate the Boers (or those Black Africans) they interned. Rather, the internment system was very poorly planned, and inadequately supplied. Not nice, but there's still a difference between bad planning and indifference to suffering, and deliberate genocide.

The British camps were setup in Nov. 1900, in Feb 1901 the public outcry in Britain began, including attacks in Parliament against this policy. This is an interesting contrast to the deliberate decision taken by Germany at the same time to exterminate everyone belonging to troublesome tribes in Namibia.

And going back the main topic, the Nazi's committed deliberate genocide. But took a step further than any one else before by industrialising genocide.

Memory Of 98 wrote: »

Personally, I think both sides were as bad as each other, just the same side of a large imperialistic coin. But if you boys are going to have a debate, don't slate one side for doing the same thing that your heroes had been doing for decades, learn your history.

And when I say all sides, I mean all sides, throughout history, from French to Spanish.

I don't follow that sort of "moral equivalence" world-view. Clearly all actions and reactions, whether by empires, nations or indivuals, are not exactly "equal" in their effects.

Shredder66 wrote: »

Hitler's army entered the Rhineland which was taken from them. He annexed the Sudetenland and Austria. He invaded Poland to take back more German territory but was necessary as Stalin was invading from the East. He only invaded France when France and Britain declared war on Germany.

Hitler must have "accidentally" occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in March 1939.

How did he know Stalin would invade from the East, just after he invaded? Is it because Molotov and Ribbontrop agreed on this, even wrote it all down in a (secret) treaty. Perhaps, like has been suggested with the Holocaust, Hitler never got that memo?

Fuinseog

getz wrote: »

easy answer dont bother reading books or watching war films,

some war movies are good and balanced. other have an agenda. the boogey man image of the fanatical SS man stems from movies such as Dirty Dozen

Fuinseog

golden lane wrote: »

it is also believed that two million russian pow's died the same way....

i think the op is getting mixed up with stalin and hitler....overall stalin wins the killings game....but during ww2....hitler has the upper hand...

one wonders how Britain and France could have fought a tyrant such as Hitler and work with a tyrant such as Stalin?

Russian POWs received shoddy treatment from the Germans yet when they were 'liberated' they were sent off to Siberia.

Fuinseog

Shredder66 wrote: »

Wow, that was long and boring. Yes, I was force fed ridiculous accounts of the war which is the official story and still is.
when I was a student. And if you dared point anything out they wouldn't debate it, they'd merely smear you by calling you a "Nazi sympathiser".
I am not being biased because as I've already said bad things happened on both sides (but the Germans were certainly the lesser evil in my opinion

history is made to measure. calling you a 'nazi' is the usual attempt to get you to shut up. independent thought is dangerous.

Shredder66

Fuinseog wrote: »

some war movies are good and balanced. other have an agenda. the boogey man image of the fanatical SS man stems from movies such as Dirty Dozen

I can't actually think of one, not WWII anyway, I tried but I can't name any

Fuinseog

Shredder66 wrote: »

I can't actually think of one, not WWII anyway, I tried but I can't name any

Downfall was interesting. one of the few movies that presented the SS as normal soldiers.

Shredder66

Fuinseog wrote: »

one wonders how Britain and France could have fought a tyrant such as Hitler and work with a tyrant such as Stalin?

Russian POWs received shoddy treatment from the Germans yet when they were 'liberated' they were sent off to Siberia.

That is indeed correct, not very well known but undoubtably true

Shredder66

Fuinseog wrote: »

Downfall was interesting. one of the few movies that presented the SS as normal soldiers.

Yes, that would be a good example but there wasn't really any scenes where they were against the allies, just in the end when the Russians came in. In almost every film from Hollywood they show the yanks as fun-loving heroic freedom fighters but the Germans always evil.

golden lane

Fuinseog wrote: »

one wonders how Britain and France could have fought a tyrant such as Hitler and work with a tyrant such as Stalin?

Russian POWs received shoddy treatment from the Germans yet when they were 'liberated' they were sent off to Siberia.

in fact....most of them are believed to have been executed......

do you think they should have worked with the germans...????

Shredder66

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote: »

No side in WW2 has clean hands in regard to war crimes it just that each have different levels of them. in the mind of ordinary joe soaps who may not have read much about WW2 the Third reich would come at the top of the list. The Japanese get forgotten for their treatment of Allied POWs and what they did in Singapore etc. IMO the Russian comitted more war crimes and are responsiable for millions more innocent deaths than the Germans.

it is believed that over 750,000 German POWs died of deliberate neglect after WW2

Thank you for this intelligent comment, I haven't heard too many as of yet...You're right also, the japs were quite vicious in their methods but the yanks dropped 2 nukes on civillians. i suppose because it's from the sky it removes the up, close and personal element of it but the result is mass murder.

golden lane

Shredder66 wrote: »

Thank you for this intelligent comment, I haven't heard too many as of yet...You're right also, the japs were quite vicious in their methods but the yanks dropped 2 nukes on civillians. i suppose because it's from the sky it removes the up, close and personal element of it but the result is mass murder.

i see what you are getting at now......you are jealous that the germans and the japs were beaten.......

Reekwind

Fuinseog wrote: »

history is made to measure. calling you a 'nazi' is the usual attempt to get you to shut up. independent thought is dangerous.

Are you invoking the Nazis in defence of "independent thought"?

But really, it's deeply ironic watching Nazi apologists (and yes, that includes you Fuinseog) play the martyr. 'Oh, nobody takes me seriously when I suggest that Hitler wasn't all that bad or that all those Jewish accounts of the Holocaust were faked as part of some attempt to monopolise suffering. Oh woe is me'

Shredder66 wrote:

You're right also, the japs were quite vicious in their methods but the yanks dropped 2 nukes on civillians. i suppose because it's from the sky it removes the up, close and personal element of it but the result is mass murder.

Or, and this is just a possibility, the dropping of the nuclear bombs (along with the firebombing campaign and the interment of Japanese-Americans) remains a deeply controversial action that continues to be discussed and debated today. Its advocates have from the very beginning been compelled to put forward their rationale for the decision - ie, 'we had to do this because...' - and this logic continues to be questioned in popular and academic history

Oh wait... I forgot that we're allowed to simply dismiss decades of debate because we're ignorant of it :rolleyes:

Fuinseog

golden lane wrote: »

in fact....most of them are believed to have been executed......

do you think they should have worked with the germans...????

they were poor unfortunates who were expected to fight to the death, even if they had no guns or ammunition. surrender to the Germans appeared better than death. I believe some did fight under Vasslov.

golden lane

Fuinseog wrote: »

they were poor unfortunates who were expected to fight to the death, even if they had no guns or ammunition. surrender to the Germans appeared better than death. I believe some did fight under Vasslov.

unfortunates.....that sums up most people involved in ww2.....

the way those prisoners were treated.......gives reasons for the germans to be treated in much the same manner.....

the problem with hindsight is......there is no raw passion/hatred/revenge in the discussion.......wars are overflowing with those human emotions....

and there can be no judgements made fairly without those emotions being taken into consideration....

i spoke to many ex german soldiers....it was sixteen years after the war, and maybe six years since most of the german pow's were released from soviet camps....i also spoke to many british soldiers who had taken part in the d- day landings and actions after that......yes, still fresh in their minds....

were they murderers....yes, they were all murderers by todays standards....
but not by the standards of those days...

Memory Of 98

donaghs wrote: »

I don't believe there is any evidence that the British planned the camps to exterminate the Boers (or those Black Africans) they interned. Rather, the internment system was very poorly planned, and inadequately supplied. Not nice, but there's still a difference between bad planning and indifference to suffering, and deliberate genocide.

In fact, there was a great propoganda war in England, people were told that the Boer people were looked after efficiently and cared for with great humanity

But no, I'm sure that you are right. I'm certain that when dozens of British soldiers arrived at South African farms, burned them to the ground and drove the people to the fields, they had no intention of eradicating them. Or when they massacred all their animals, and destroyed all their crops in an attempt to starve the people, they had no intention of harming the Boer people?
Or when they rounded up all the women and children, threw them in cattle trucks, and sent them those those holidays camps, where they starved and died by the tens of thousand, they had no intention of eradicating the Boer people?

It was just an accident that they decimated the population. Britain had always been close when an unfortunate accident happened. From accidentally giving disease infested blankets to Native Americans, to accidentally shipping massive amounts of food out of Ireland while half the population disappeared, to housing women and children in camps and accidentally forgetting to feed them.

Britain could always manipulate the media to suit itself, and clean its image in the eyes of the public.

It is shocking to see anyone give any empire two thumbs up, especially when they declare one their favourite, as it was the lesser of two evils.

I'll say it again, evil is evil, and humans are humans, The British were as bad as the Germans, the same side of one coin.

Fratton Fred

Memory Of 98 wrote: »

In fact, there was a great propoganda war in England, people were told that the Boer people were looked after efficiently and cared for with great humanity

But no, I'm sure that you are right. I'm certain that when dozens of British soldiers arrived at South African farms, burned them to the ground and drove the people to the fields, they had no intention of eradicating them. Or when they massacred all their animals, and destroyed all their crops in an attempt to starve the people, they had no intention of harming the Boer people?
Or when they rounded up all the women and children, threw them in cattle trucks, and sent them those those holidays camps, where they starved and died by the tens of thousand, they had no intention of eradicating the Boer people?

It was just an accident that they decimated the population. Britain had always been close when an unfortunate accident happened. From accidentally giving disease infested blankets to Native Americans, to accidentally shipping massive amounts of food out of Ireland while half the population disappeared, to housing women and children in camps and accidentally forgetting to feed them.

Britain could always manipulate the media to suit itself, and clean its image in the eyes of the public.

It is shocking to see anyone give any empire two thumbs up, especially when they declare one their favourite, as it was the lesser of two evils.

I'll say it again, evil is evil, and humans are humans, The British were as bad as the Germans, the same side of one coin.

Did the British also plan the deaths of 15,000 of its own servicemen in the same cholera epidemic?

Judgement Day

Memory Of 98 wrote: »

In fact, there was a great propoganda war in England, people were told that the Boer people were looked after efficiently and cared for with great humanity

But no, I'm sure that you are right. I'm certain that when dozens of British soldiers arrived at South African farms, burned them to the ground and drove the people to the fields, they had no intention of eradicating them. Or when they massacred all their animals, and destroyed all their crops in an attempt to starve the people, they had no intention of harming the Boer people?
Or when they rounded up all the women and children, threw them in cattle trucks, and sent them those those holidays camps, where they starved and died by the tens of thousand, they had no intention of eradicating the Boer people?

It was just an accident that they decimated the population. Britain had always been close when an unfortunate accident happened. From accidentally giving disease infested blankets to Native Americans, to accidentally shipping massive amounts of food out of Ireland while half the population disappeared, to housing women and children in camps and accidentally forgetting to feed them.

Britain could always manipulate the media to suit itself, and clean its image in the eyes of the public.

It is shocking to see anyone give any empire two thumbs up, especially when they declare one their favourite, as it was the lesser of two evils.

I'll say it again, evil is evil, and humans are humans, The British were as bad as the Germans, the same side of one coin.

Well it's just as well for you that the evil Allies won the war as Hitler and his mob would have severely curtailed your freedom to give out about things unless, of course, you might have found your true calling as a collaborator.

Wibbs

R.Dub.Fusilier wrote: »

No side in WW2 has clean hands in regard to war crimes it just that each have different levels of them. in the mind of ordinary joe soaps who may not have read much about WW2 the Third reich would come at the top of the list. The Japanese get forgotten for their treatment of Allied POWs and what they did in Singapore etc. IMO the Russian comitted more war crimes and are responsiable for millions more innocent deaths than the Germans.

it is believed that over 750,000 German POWs died of deliberate neglect after WW2

I'd go along with this view, with the caveat that Reekwind mentioned of the inflated figures attributable to Stalin.

donaghs wrote: »

And going back the main topic, the Nazi's committed deliberate genocide. But took a step further than any one else before by industrialising genocide.

This is where the German Nazi's and their allies went to a new level. The very name they had for it sums it up. The final solution. The first solutions were to excise "undesirables" from Nazi* society, the next was to transport them away to somewhere else(all sorts of madcap schemes put forward on this one), the final solution was extermination. Even when the war was going badly for them they diverted massive amounts of materiel, effort and funding(every train passenger was paid for) to achieve this insane aim. That's what makes it horrific.

*Aside* in my humble how the deniers get a foothold and with some tiny semblance of reason, is the popular idea of the Holocaust in the public mind and some of the misconceptions involved. People hear "concentration camp" and picture gas chambers and ovens. People see pictures from Belsen and think gas chambers and ovens. They conflate specific death camps and concentration camps. These ideas are historically inaccurate, however repugnant the results. Belsen(which figures in many pictorial records) wasn't a "death camp". Yes people were executed, but most in such places died from the hideous conditions and overwork that led to starvation and disease. A tiny bit less repugnant, compared to the wholesale mechanised slaughter with no other aim but extermination. So your deniers can point to a Belsen pic and go "hah! there were no gassings at Belsen, therefore it's all a lie. QED", or "Auschwitz was a work camp not an extermination camp, look at the slave labour factories, look how many Jews didn't die there, therefore it's all a lie. QED".

At first glance this makes sense because it's half true and for conspiracy people the half truth is grist to their mill. A place like Treblinka is a lot harder to square away. There's also the political agenda and that goes for many sides too. The anti Israeli types can latch onto the "no we're not guilty you know", and the pro Israeli types can egg on the whole thing for their own political ends.

Regardless of all that he simple and historically verifiable facts are that there was a "Final Solution" and a concerted plan to "remove" all undesirables from the Reich(Jews, political/religious opponents, Gypsies, the disabled, either by working them to death, sterilising them(they were mad for this one), starving them to death, shooting them and when all that wasn't enough industrialising the whole process to speed it up.

Still think no, or have doubts? The Germans were gung ho for record keeping. They were careful to couch these operations in euphemism, but if you were looking for only one smoking gun? Train records. Every single "special train" that passed through the Reich had a movement order on it and was verified through each and every town, between the source(usually a ghetto, but not always) and the final destination. Passenger numbers, coal used, different currencies required for payment if they had to cross borders** that sort of thing. There are hundreds of these movement orders still around. Now not all special trains were sinister. Some were "package holiday" type trains for servicemens families, even tour operators. However those ones were distinct in one way. They had returns. Trains didn't come back empty. The other ones of which there were hundreds always came back empty(they weren't always Hollywood style cattle/good wagons either). Indeed some documents exist where officials are wondering can they use these returning empty trains for other purposes. So where did these thousands of people go? Disneyland? Why did so few survive the war? Is there another hidden Israel, another hidden Gypsy homeland in eastern Europe? Nope, though maybe if you dug under the soil you may well find homelands of the dead alright. Even if you forget Hollywood and atrocity and misery porn and all the other stuff, where did those people go?







*I say Nazi here rather than German because a helluva lot of European nations were only too happy to help them round up whomever they considered undesirables from their own lands(with the notable exceptions of the Finns and Danes). One interesting one I read were the experiences of a Luftwaffe pilot who was captured by the Russians. One of them asked him where he was from in Germany. Turned out he was from the same town as this Russian officers cousin and this pilot had been his schoolfriend. A Jewish schoolfriend no less. The Russian officer whispered to him that his family had fled to Russia in the 30's to escape the Nazis, but found the Russians weren't much better. At the time. Clearly he nor the German pilot weren't up to speed on the holocaust stuff. Heel of the hunt he left his stockade unlocked and the German guy escaped(on horseback of all things).

** interesting one was one transportation of Greek Jews. They crossed a couple of borders to get to the death camps. The Nazis had the funds to pay for it from the looted Jews. Problem was it was in Drachma and the other countries wanted Marks. The IOU for that still exists. The only known time the mechanism had to issue one.

indioblack

Shredder66 wrote: »

Wow, that was long and boring. Yes, I was force fed ridiculous accounts of the war which is the official story and still is.
when I was a student. And if you dared point anything out they wouldn't debate it, they'd merely smear you by calling you a "Nazi sympathiser".
I am not being biased because as I've already said bad things happened on both sides (but the Germans were certainly the lesser evil in my opinion

So all the accounts of the war - the "official story" as you describe it, are ridiculous.
"Bad things happened on both sides".
Who said they didn't?
"The Germans were certainly the lesser evil"
I would prefer the term "Third Reich" as I never regarded the Germans as evil.
So, am I right in thinking that you claim the Third Reich was less evil than some, or all of it's opponents?

Memory Of 98

Judgement Day wrote: »

Well it's just as well for you that the evil Allies won the war as Hitler and his mob would have severely curtailed your freedom to give out about things unless, of course, you might have found your true calling as a collaborator.

You didn't even bother reading the post, I am not giving support to either side, just noting how similar they all are, as many of the posters on here are very liberal when it comes to which parts of Britian's history they ignore, and which parts they bring to the forefront.

But then again, continue with insulting me personally and not adding anything to the debate, it shows your maturity.

Judgement Day

Memory Of 98 wrote: »

You didn't even bother reading the post, I am not giving support to either side, just noting how similar they all are, as many of the posters on here are very liberal when it comes to which parts of Britian's history they ignore, and which parts they bring to the forefront.

But then again, continue with insulting me personally and not adding anything to the debate, it shows your maturity.

When you post up unsubstantiated rubbish like this http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=79858171&postcount=76 in a 'history' forum you can expect retaliation in kind.

Joey the lips

" The first casuality of war is truth"

All war is bad and both sides will take advantage. The real people who suffer in war is the civilian population. Although if the war never happened then there would be a lot more suffering.

Granted its all portrayed as one sided thats because the side that won wrote the history books.

donaghs

Fuinseog wrote: »

one wonders how Britain and France could have fought a tyrant such as Hitler and work with a tyrant such as Stalin?

Russian POWs received shoddy treatment from the Germans yet when they were 'liberated' they were sent off to Siberia.

Britain and France in the 1930s were wary of forming any alliance with Stalin. After the Hitler-Stalin pact, even more so. In fact, plans were even being made to support the Finns in the war against the USSR. However, Soviet-Finnish negotiations were being arrangeed, and any intervention was finally derailed by the German invasion of Norway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-British_plans_for_intervention_in_the_Winter_War

After the fall of France, Britain was on its own in Europe (the USA was neutral), so naturally they welcomed a Soviet alliance after Germany invaded the USSR.

By the time the US got involved in the European war, the USSR was doing almost all the fighting against Germany. Should the UK and the USA have broken their alliance with the USSR? I think not. Could they have gotten better terms at the conferences like Tehran and Potsdam? possibly...

getz

facts.randomhistory.com/world-war-11 -facts.html

Shredder66

Judgement Day wrote: »

Well it's just as well for you that the evil Allies won the war as Hitler and his mob would have severely curtailed your freedom to give out about things unless, of course, you might have found your true calling as a collaborator.

It would have been better than having the Soviets occupy half of Europe, which our gallant allies permitted. Tell that to the Lithuanians and the Poles and the Hungarians. No freedom in Nazi Germany? There was lot more freedom in Nazi Germany than there was in Communist Russia and freedom of speech is actually very limited today in this part of the world.

Shredder66

Joey the lips wrote: »

" The first casuality of war is truth"

All war is bad and both sides will take advantage. The real people who suffer in war is the civilian population. Although if the war never happened then there would be a lot more suffering.

Granted its all portrayed as one sided thats because the side that won wrote the history books.

Exactly correct, but if I were a German, who decided to make a movie showing the Germans are the heroes and the allies as even mildly evil we know what the public outcry would be like, especially from brainwashed members of Boards.ie who are incapable of forming opinions of their own, it would be deafening I tells you, and that's the double standard

Shredder66

donaghs wrote: »

Britain and France in the 1930s were wary of forming any alliance with Stalin. After the Hitler-Stalin pact, even more so. In fact, plans were even being made to support the Finns in the war against the USSR. However, Soviet-Finnish negotiations were being arrangeed, and any intervention was finally derailed by the German invasion of Norway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-British_plans_for_intervention_in_the_Winter_War

After the fall of France, Britain was on its own in Europe (the USA was neutral), so naturally they welcomed a Soviet alliance after Germany invaded the USSR.

By the time the US got involved in the European war, the USSR was doing almost all the fighting against Germany. Should the UK and the USA have broken their alliance with the USSR? I think not. Could they have gotten better terms at the conferences like Tehran and Potsdam? possibly...

Everyone with even half a brain knows knows why Britain and France backed the USSR, I won't say because it's too politically incorrect and I'm afraid I'll make many people here cry and scream bloody murder. it doesn't take too much investigation, just ask why, why would they help? why would the US want to enter the war? Why did the Japs atack Pearl Harbor, was it unprovoked and a surprise? Even further back why did the yanks enter the first world war. The answer is not hard to find if you scratch a little bit below the surface. It was in the interest of a certain group of people.