The Savage Peace, the Forgotten atrocity of WWII

neverever1 · 18-05-2017 09:37PM

wakka12 wrote: »

Yeh well I would think it is fully justifiable for the governments of the occupied middle eastern nations to declare war on united states and britain actually

The problem is that the American/British alliance appoint the governments they want!

neverever1 · 18-05-2017 09:39PM

indioblack wrote: »

I agree. What I suspect, and find distasteful, is that there are posters who are using the deaths of people simply as a tool, a device, to vent their anti-British bile.
I'd say these people claiming some sort of moral high ground have no interest in the Indians or those who died in Dresden - their deaths are basically useful in advancing their agenda.

I believe the pro Brits are using the death of the Jews to further their agenda. They don't care how many of them died, it just makes their 'Empire' look better.

Alizrian Crimson · 18-05-2017 09:39PM

Me personally I'm not advancing an agenda, I just want to talk about an atrocity I knew very little about.

But I'll say this, rape and murder of civilians can never be justified.

odyssey06 · 18-05-2017 09:44PM

neverever1 wrote: »

I believe the pro Brits are using the death of the Jews to further their agenda. They don't care how many of them died, it just makes their 'Empire' look better.

If the Brits didn't care about the fate of the peoples of Europe, and only cared for their Empire, they would never have declared war on Germany in 1939.

Germany didn't attack Britain directly. Germany attacked Poland.
Britain could have stood aside as let Germany exterminate every last Jew, Gypsy, Pole and every other person deemed undesirable by their evil, sick, twisted beliefs in Europe.

If the Brits were the kind of people you state they are, that's what they would have done.

It is to their eternal credit, and it is to the good fortune of the world, that the Brits are not those kind of people.
And it is greatly to the credit of all those Irishmen who volunteered to fight in British uniforms against an enemy such as the Nazis. I salute them all.

neverever1 · 18-05-2017 09:49PM

odyssey06 wrote: »

If the Brits didn't care about the fate of the peoples of Europe, and only cared for their Empire, they would never have declared war on Germany in 1939.

Germany didn't attack Britain directly. Germany attacked Poland.
Britain could have stood aside as let Germany exterminate every last Jew, Gypsy, Pole and every other person deemed undesirable by their evil, sick, twisted beliefs in Europe.

If the Brits were the kind of people you state they are, that's what they would have done.

It is to their eternal credit, and it is to the good fortune of the world, that the Brits are not those kind of people.
And it is greatly to the credit of all those Irishmen who volunteered to fight in British uniforms against an enemy such as the Nazis. I salute them all.

You're just posting anti German bile! You are using the deaths of the Jews, millions of Eastern Europeans etc to further your agenda.

odyssey06 · 18-05-2017 09:50PM

neverever1 wrote: »

Here's a list of the wars Britain were involved in just during the 20th century.

Boxer Rebellion ended 1901
Anglo-Aro War 1901–1902
Second Boer War ended 1902
World War I 1914–1918
Easter Rising 1916
Third Anglo Marri War 1917
Third Afghan War 1919
Irish War of Independence 1919–1921
World War II 1939–1945
Normandy landings 1945
Malayan Emergency 1948–1960
Korean War 1950–1953
Mau Mau Uprising 1952–1960
Vietnam War 1955–1975
Cypriot Independence 1955–1959
Suez Crisis 1956–1957
Brunei Revolt 1962–1966
Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation 1962-1966
Dhofar Rebellion 1962–1975
Aden Emergency 1968–1998
The Troubles 1968–1998
Operation Banner 1969–2007
Falklands War 1982
Gulf War 1990–1991
Yugoslav wars 1991–2001
Bosnian War 1992–1995
Kosovo War 1998–1999

But of course it was never their fault. This is just the list of wars also, the amount of murders and mass genocide committed during this time makes the nazis look like choir boys. The Brits were blood thirsty to the core.

I don't know if it was never their fault, but someone who puts up a post like that to criticise Britain has lost all sense of moral compass.

The Normandy Landings? If you are putting that up as a criticism of Britain then we can only conclude that your sympathies in WW2 were with Nazi Germany.
Why did you want Nazi Germany to win World War Two?

Irish Praetorian · 18-05-2017 09:51PM

It looks like once again we're going down the rabbit-hole of 'why were people in history mean and not nice like me?'

I'm surprised I have to say this but people in bygone eras did not look at the world in the same way as we here on board.ie do today. The choice people faced in past eras was never 'do the right thing or continue being a cartoon villain' - again and again in history, the advances we benefit from today only accrued because of the actions of men who would be deemed evil today.

I mean some of the examples we've had brought up today, the Bengal Famine of 1943 for example - what exactly is the choice you would have made at the time that would have been so grand? Entirely pull out of India in the middle of a war, with the Japanese remaining in Burma and little provision for a home government? Does that have the makings of an ideal scenario for anyone? Or the war with Japan as another example - does anyone think simply going home after Pearl Harbour consigning most of China and South East Asia to Japanese occupation was a recipe for preserving life? The population of Nanjing might have something to say about that.

Again, I'm surprised I need to say this but war is messy, ugly, violent, innocent people and places suffer and sometimes the guilty go free. It's not something we're supposed to like, but if the reaction of people is to say that there is nothing worth holding onto in order to avoid war, then you can expect a damn sight more suffering to come.

Irish Praetorian · 18-05-2017 09:52PM

odyssey06 wrote: »

I don't know if it was never their fault, but someone who puts up a post like that to criticise Britain has lost all sense of moral compass.

The Normandy Landings? If you are putting that up as a criticism of Britain then we can only conclude that your sympathies in WW2 were with Nazi Germany.
Why did you want Nazi Germany to win World War Two?

Fair points to make, though the one that smacks me in the face is the fact that the Normandy Landings were in 1944 not 1945. Minor quibble...

neverever1 · 18-05-2017 09:53PM

odyssey06 wrote: »

I don't know if it was never their fault, but someone who puts up a post like that to criticise Britain has lost all sense of moral compass.

The Normandy Landings? If you are putting that up as a criticism of Britain then we can only conclude that your sympathies in WW2 were with Nazi Germany.
Why did you want Nazi Germany to win World War Two?

I salute the nazis for standing up to the mass murdering British empire.

siblers · 18-05-2017 09:53PM

I've read numerous books on WW2, seen plenty of documentaries etc but I had never heard of this till I stumbled across it on RTE 2 on Sunday, it was pretty harrowing viewing and I was a bit taken aback that something like this has seemingly been forgotten about/ignored

Irish Praetorian · 18-05-2017 09:55PM

neverever1 wrote: »

I salute the nazis for standing up to the mass murdering British empire.

Yeah, nothing says 'screw you' to a mass murdering empire than 73 million dead.

neverever1 · 18-05-2017 09:55PM

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

It looks like once again we're going down the rabbit-hole of 'why were people in history mean and not nice like me?'

I'm surprised I have to say this but people in bygone eras did not look at the world in the same way as we here on board.ie do today. The choice people faced in past eras was never 'do the right thing or continue being a cartoon villain' - again and again in history, the advances we benefit from today only accrued because of the actions of men who would be deemed evil today.

I mean some of the examples we've had brought up today, the Bengal Famine of 1943 for example - what exactly is the choice you would have made at the time that would have been so grand? Entirely pull out of India in the middle of a war, with the Japanese remaining in Burma and little provision for a home government? Does that have the makings of an ideal scenario for anyone? Or the war with Japan as another example - does anyone think simply going home after Pearl Harbour consigning most of China and South East Asia to Japanese occupation was a recipe for preserving life? The population of Nanjing might have something to say about that.

Again, I'm surprised I need to say this but war is messy, ugly, violent, innocent people and places suffer and sometimes the guilty go free. It's not something we're supposed to like, but if the reaction of people is to say that there is nothing worth holding onto in order to avoid war, then you can expect a damn sight more suffering to come.

Britain commit mass genocide = Stop judging them with modern standards.
Anyone else commits mass genocide = Evil.

neverever1 · 18-05-2017 09:57PM

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

Yeah, nothing says 'screw you' to a mass murdering empire than 73 million dead.

But it saved so many more lives.

nice_guy80 · 18-05-2017 09:58PM

if the western allies hadn't tried to foolishly invade Holland by air and had headed straight for the Rhine through France they would have got into Germany before the Russians and would have gotten as far as Berlin at least

instead, millions of ordinary Germans suffered horribly for it

odyssey06 · 18-05-2017 09:58PM

neverever1 wrote: »

You're just posting anti German bile! You are using the deaths of the Jews, millions of Eastern Europeans etc to further your agenda.

I fail to see how posting known and widely accepted facts about Germany's conduct in World War Two counts as anti-German bile.

It is a fact that Germany attacked Poland.
It is a fact that Germany in World War Two was responsible for the deaths of millions of 'undesirables' (their twisted language - not mine).
It is a fact that Britain declared war on Germany even though Germany had not taken military action against any British forces, or any forces of the British Empire.
Whatever their public statements at the time, in their actions, Britain ultimately sacrificed their Empire in the desperate struggle to defeat Germany and Japan.

peasant · 18-05-2017 10:00PM

Some posters here are still trying to sort good from bad by nation or ethnicity...good or bad is very much an individual thing and very much brought to a point by the circumstances.

The suffering of those millions German refugees was by no means over once they reached what was left of Germany. They were largely not welcomed, treated as foreigners, exploited and hated.
Only when the economy in (West) Germany improved in the 50's did the good that was done to them go beyond the help of a few well meaning, decent people.

In short ...it seems to be relatively easy to be "good" once life is secure and positive whereas crisis and war brings out the "bad" in most of us.

neverever1 · 18-05-2017 10:00PM

odyssey06 wrote: »

I fail to see how posting known and widely accepted facts about Germany's conduct in World War Two counts as anti-German bile.

It is a fact that Germany attacked Poland.
It is a fact that Germany in World War Two was responsible for the deaths of millions of 'undesirables' (their twisted language - not mine).
It is a fact that Britain declared war on Germany even though Germany had not taken military action against any British forces, or any forces of the British Empire.
Whatever their public statements at the time, in their actions, Britain ultimately sacrificed their Empire in the desperate struggle to defeat Germany and Japan.

No, you don't care about any of that. You're just continuing your anti German agenda.

Irish Praetorian · 18-05-2017 10:02PM

neverever1 wrote: »

No, you don't care about any of that. You're just continuing your anti German agenda.

The plot thickens...out of interest are we of the view that international banking has big role behind all this?

odyssey06 · 18-05-2017 10:08PM

Alizrian Crimson wrote: »

Me personally I'm not advancing an agenda, I just want to talk about an atrocity I knew very little about.
But I'll say this, rape and murder of civilians can never be justified.

In my experience, approaching it from the perspective of 'can never be justified' is not a productive place to start.

I think the conversation should be approached from the angle of ... what are the circumstances which engender these atrocities?

I'm afraid humans are not angels. There are evil people out there, and there are situations that bring out the evil in people who in peacetime would never dare to commit such actions. Think of it as a disease which lurks within human nature.

If you launch a total war without any respect for the rules of war, or any moral code, as the Germans did on the Eastern Front, you should not be surprised if your enemy, after gaining the upper hand, visits the same treatment on you.

I'm not exonerating the people who carried out these actions, but human nature does not change (see the conduct during Yugoslavia in the early 90s).

The lesson I would draw from "The Savage Peace" is that if you do not want these atrocities to occur, do not create the circumstances which cause an outbreak of atrocities to occur.
Relying on the moral compass of humanity as a whole is not enough - it is never enough.
This advice applies as much as Ancient Greece as it did in World War Two as it does today.

Alizrian Crimson · 18-05-2017 10:16PM

The actions of those who inflicted suffering on German civilians was deeply immoral. That cannot be argued. These were women and children, old people.

If man breaks into my house and kills my brother and rapes my sister it doesn't give me the right to do the same to him.

odyssey06 · 18-05-2017 10:19PM

nice_guy80 wrote: »

if the western allies hadn't tried to foolishly invade Holland by air and had headed straight for the Rhine through France they would have got into Germany before the Russians and would have gotten as far as Berlin at least

instead, millions of ordinary Germans suffered horribly for it

I think millions of ordinary Germans suffered horribly because their leaders did not surrender even though defeat was staring them in the face.

We must all lament failings in Anglo-American military strategy to achieve a quicker end to the war, counted in the cost the lives of Allied soldiers and the civilians of Europe whom they were fighting to liberate, and those Europeans who after the war found themselves subjects of Soviet tyranny.

indioblack · 18-05-2017 10:23PM

Alizrian Crimson wrote: »

The actions of those who inflicted suffering on German civilians was deeply immoral. That cannot be argued. These were women and children, old people.

If man breaks into my house and kills my brother and rapes my sister it doesn't give me the right to do the same to him.

Agreed - you would want the legal system to act on your behalf against the offender. Belligerent nation states at war could not, would not, wait for their cause to be given justice - they would probably have no recourse but to seek redress themselves - and thus the Pandora's Box of the evils of war is opened.

odyssey06 · 18-05-2017 10:29PM

Alizrian Crimson wrote: »

The actions of those who inflicted suffering on German civilians was deeply immoral. That cannot be argued. These were women and children, old people.
If man breaks into my house and kills my brother and rapes my sister it doesn't give me the right to do the same to him.

Who is saying it was moral? Or that they had a right to do so?
What power on Earth in 1945 had the capabilities to hold the people who inflicted that suffering to account???

Would you be surprised if you read a story from ancient myth, or a hunter gatherer tribe, or one tribe seeking revenge on another for a raid, by killing the males of that tribe and taking the females as captives?
What happened at the end of the Trojan War? I seem to remember male babies being thrown from the ramparts and females such as Cassandra and Clytemnestra being taken as 'booty'.

Some men use violence to achieve their aims, at the individual level, or collective level.
Whether it is hunter gatherer tribes, or postwar Europe, Human nature comes with the capacity for violence, revenge and retribution.

These things don't just happen at random though.
There was a reason why they happened to those particular Germans.
Compare the fate of Germans in western Europe to those in eastern Europe.

That lesson to be drawn from the documentary is that human nature does not change, it has the capacity for evil, we must guard against the circumstances that let that evil escape unbounded.

Jimoslimos · 18-05-2017 10:32PM

wakka12 wrote: »

If the allies played nice while hitler didnt then it would have cost them the war. Hitler had no respect for civilian life in other countries so why have respect for his people who ,at least outside looking in, seemed to largely support his regime

Because if you lower yourself to the standards of your enemy, your enemy has already won.

wakka12 wrote: »

Don't forget the Filipinos and Chinese. Arguably suffered the worst of everyone in the war bar the jewish people. Japanese were brutal occupiers

Indeed, the Japanese armies were particularly nasty, perhaps by some reports even more sadistic than the Nazis. Does this mean that thousands of civilians deserved to be incinerated in an atomic fireball? Suppose should be grateful that the US didn't get to try out their expensive new toy in a European city.

odyssey06 · 18-05-2017 10:39PM

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Because if you lower yourself to the standards of your enemy, your enemy has already won.

Indeed, the Japanese armies were particularly nasty, perhaps by some reports even more sadistic than the Nazis. Does this mean that thousands of civilians deserved to be incinerated in an atomic fireball? Suppose should be grateful that the US didn't get to try out their expensive new toy in a European city.

1946 Europe looked very different following an Anglo-American victory, than it would have looked after a Nazi victory.
I think that refutes the concept that "your enemy has already won".

Thousands of Japanese civilians died in an atomic fireball because their leaders did not surrender even though their defeat was inevitable... the only question was how many lives it would take - both American and Japanese.

Did they deserve to die, no? But neither would the American soldiers who would have died in a D-Day landing on the Japanese homeland.

Dropping the atomic bomb was done to bring the war to a conclusion... as many if not more Japanese civilians would have died if the conventional bombing had continued and an invasion had occurred.

Even after the first bomb was dropped, still the Japanese did not surrender... it took two atomic bombs to do that.
Ask the Japanese leadership what they gained by waiting for the second bomb to be dropped before they surrendered.

Are Am Eye · 18-05-2017 10:46PM

odyssey06 wrote: »

Who is saying it was moral? Or that they had a right to do so?
What power on Earth in 1945 had the capabilities to hold the people who inflicted that suffering to account???

Would you be surprised if you read a story from ancient myth, or a hunter gatherer tribe, or one tribe seeking revenge on another for a raid, by killing the males of that tribe and taking the females as captives?
What happened at the end of the Trojan War? I seem to remember male babies being thrown from the ramparts and females such as Cassandra and Clytemnestra being taken as 'booty'.

Some men use violence to achieve their aims, at the individual level, or collective level.
Whether it is hunter gatherer tribes, or postwar Europe, Human nature comes with the capacity for violence, revenge and retribution.

These things don't just happen at random though.
There was a reason why they happened to those particular Germans.
Compare the fate of Germans in western Europe to those in eastern Europe.

That lesson to be drawn from the documentary is that human nature does not change, it has the capacity for evil, we must guard against the circumstances that let that evil escape unbounded.

The Iliad is not a history book.

The lesson from the documentary went over your head. It's that the history of the second world war was not as black and white as the victors liked to paint it in their history books.

Irish Praetorian · 18-05-2017 10:52PM

Are Am Eye wrote: »

The Iliad is not a history book.

The lesson from the documentary went over your head. It's that the history of the second world war was not as black and white as the victors liked to paint it in their history books.

Has, well, ANYONE, in this thread tried to paint it as a black and white story?

SEPT 23 1989 · 18-05-2017 10:58PM

I'm sure had the Reich been successful they would have treated all the defeated with compassion

As for the Japanese they deserved everything they got they made the Nazis look like choir boys

captbarnacles · 18-05-2017 10:59PM

The eastern front was a war of annihilation. The soldiers in that front were insensate to suffering and death after 4 years of savage fighting in which 20 million russians died. Sometimes I think their retaliation was mild overall.

captbarnacles · 18-05-2017 11:01PM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

I'm sure had the Reich been successful they would have treated all the defeated with compassion

As for the Japanese they deserved everything they got they made the Nazis look like choir boys

Yeah I thought nothing would compare to the brutality on the eastern front but then I read of Nanking...

The Savage Peace, the Forgotten atrocity of WWII

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