Dresden Bombing. Holocaust?

That device wouldnt have prevented their cities from being bombed. The presumption is that the enemy would have taken their word for it, and if not, what? a commission would have been formed and inspectors sent to make sure the city is indeed "open"? Come on. Moreover, the industry had dual use, so even if the city was declared "open", unless all factories were closed down, any continued activity would've been considered war-oriented.

take care

The attack of naval units carrying rescue missions. The hot potato was shoved into Doenitz hands until he could prove that the British did it too. Then suddenly the charge was dropped. No more questions, gentlemen... Next topic.

You "open city" trend is a weird idea. More like 18 century stuff that WWII Total War. As you proved it wasn't respected anyway and nobody managed to draw this trick during the war.

This post has been edited by Chutzpah on June 06, 2006 09:49 pm

Hi Imp,

Yup. That is right. Anycity declared "Open" would have been subject to neutral supervision.

We know the Germans failed to observe Belgrade being declared "Open". However, they themselves clearly thought it possible the Allies would observe it. They occupied Budapest to prevent it being declared "Open" and they declared Rome "Open" before they left.

The fact of the matter is that the German leadership considered the war production of all their cities more important than the safety of their populations or their cultural glories. Why, then, should the Allies be expected to show more concern for the populations and cultural glories of German cities than their own leadership?

No attempt was made to declare even one German hamlet "Open", let alone a city. The Nazi leadership was prepared to expend the whole of Germany just to buy a little more time in power.

Cheers,

Sid.

Because that the difference between Good and Evil ? Are you saying me that the Allies were no better than the bunch of thugs leading Nazi Germany and should have behaved the same ? Concentration camps anyone ? Massacring prisoners perhaps ?

Do you need a book of law to have a moral compass ?

Hi Chutzpah,

Ahhhhh, if only it was as simple as a straightforward conflict of Good and Evil!

I don't hold such a simplistic view. WWII was between the Better and the Worse, not the Good and the Evil. One can find some redeeming features even in Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany. One can find some significant flaws in the actions of the Western Liberal Democracies.

Remember, the obligations of governments are to their OWN people first. All belligerents know simply by virtue of going to war that their armed forces are going to kill some enemy innocents because such innocents are not hermetically sealed off from the conflict.

In the real world one has to make moral compromises for the greater good. Area bombing was one of the two major moral compromises made by the Western Allies in WWII.

Must go prematurely,

Cheers,

Sid.



The

You know Sid I was just answering your question "Why, then, should the Allies be expected to show more concern for the populations and cultural glories of German cities than their own leadership? " in the clearest possible way.

I still think my answer was spot on, don't you ?

Hi Chutzpah,

Your answer is, indeed "spot on", if, that is, you are a complete pacifist. If you are, then I recognise that as a principled ideal position. However, it is one that I do not personally hold as practical.

In an ideal world everyone would be lovey-dovey to each other, even their enemies. Sadly we do not live in such a world.

We often forget as we conduct our theoretical debates that the men of the time had the burden of practical considerations that we do not. They had to make moral compromises on behalf of our fathers and grandfathers.

If the likes of Dresden had not been bombed, an indeterminate number of additional Allied soldiers would have died. Those who oppose such bombings, legal at the time, have to explain to these condemned men why they are to be sacrificed in the interests of saving the lives and property of an enemy still in the field against them?

Cheers,

Sid.

Uh, no. You don't have to be a complete pacifist in order to have principled positions.

Do you think US soldiers should have massacred POWS in situation were those prisoners could become a burden during an operation (and thus increase the likelihood of US deaths)

Tell me Sid, if you think that the US didn't came in Europe with better principles than the nazis, can you explain to me why they did come at all ?

I have the feeling that if the US divisions had started to behave like Das Reich in France it wouldn't have lasted long before the partisans blew their convoys too.

This post has been edited by Chutzpah on June 09, 2006 11:09 am

Hi Chutzpah,

Did I post that Pacifism was the only principled position? No.

Did I write that I thought that the US came to Europe with no better principles than the Nazis? No.

If you want to argue these points with yourself, be my guest, but please don't pretend these positions are mine.

I don't think anyone, not just Americans, should shoot prisoners unless they are revolting, trying to escape or have been properly found guilty of a capital offence.

It is perhaps worth pointing out that Allied bombing killed at least 40,000 French civilians in WWII. It was sometimes opposed by French anti-aircraft artillery in the Vichy zone in 1943-44, but there was no French revolt behind Allied lines at any stage. The Free French reluctantly accepted that civilian casualties at Allied hands were an unavoidable price that had to be paid to facilitate liberation. I don't think Das Reich has this justification of fighting to liberate France, do you?

Cheers,

Sid.

Did I pretend these positions were yours ? No.

Why do you pretend that I pretend ?

So you have a something like contradiction here,. You wouldn’t butcher prisoners even if it could help saving the lives of US soldiers in operation but murdering civilians from the sky to save the lifes of US soldiers in operation seems acceptable. Were do you draw the line ?

I don't either, Sid.

Cheers

Hi Chutzpah,

Well, if we are agreed that neither of the first two propositions is mine it relieves me of any need to defend either. Perhaps you should be addressing these questions to someone who does hold those views?

Nope. No contradiction.

There was a significant difference between prisoners in one's own custody and enemy civilians in the custody of that enemy behind his own lines, was there not?

One has the primary duty of care to prisoners in one's own hands, but the enemy has the primary duty of care to his own civilians behind his own lines, does he not?

Had the enemy at Dresden declared Dresden an "Open" city and treated it as such, that would have extended the duty of care to the Anglo-Americans, but he didn't, did he?

Next?

Cheers,

Sid.

The total disregard shown for the most elementary principles of international law and of humanity brands the sinking of the Robin Moor as the act of an international outlaw.

[...]

Our Government believes that freedom from cruelty and inhuman treatment is a natural right. It is not a grace to be given or withheld at the will of those temporarily in a position to exert force over defenseless people.

Were this incident capable of being regarded apart from a more general background, its implications might be less serious-but it must be interpreted in the light of a declared and actively pursued policy of frightfulness and intimidation which has been used by the German Reich as an instrument of international policy.

The present leaders of the German Reich have not hesitated to engage in acts of cruelty and many other forms of terror against the innocent and the helpless in other countries, apparently in the belief that methods of terrorism will lead to a state of affairs permitting the German Reich to exact acquiescence from the nations victimized.

This Government can only assume that the Government of the German Reich hopes through the commission of such infamous acts of cruelty to helpless and innocent men, women, and children to intimidate the United States and other nations into a course of nonresistance to German plans for universal conquest--a conquest based upon lawlessness and terror on land and piracy on the sea.

Such methods are fully in keeping with the methods of terrorism hitherto employed by the present leaders of the German Reich in the policy which they have pursued toward many other nations subsequently victimized.

Roosevelt, Speech to Congress, June 20, 1941

Because the US entered the war in the name and defense of a set of principles and civilisational values that they considered superior to those of the enemy. Or at least so they said.
And it seems they did differentiate between good and bad, eevn outside strict international law - Rossevelt talked about humantiy.

Hi Imp,

I did not say that the US did not have values and principles. My point was that it was more pragmatic things, like Pearl Harbour, that brought it into the war. As I posted before, if such principles were the main plank of US foreign policy, the US could have gone to war with Germany as early as the Nazi coup attempt and murder of the Austrian chancellor in July 1934. Perhaps even earlier.....

It is also worth pointing out that for all the rhetoric you reproduce surrounding the sinking of the Robin Moor, it did not lead to a declaration of war by the USA.

Cheers,

Sid.

Sid, this is the Dresden Bombing thread, not the one about the entry in the war. I answered your questions (the ones I quoted in my last message). Will we stay on topic or veer off into the other thread?

Hi Imp,

We both seem to be way off thread then, as your last post didn't mention Dresden either!

Cheers,

Sid.