Dresden Bombing. Holocaust?

Bomber Harris will never be called a War Criminal, and rightly so, his strategy was pure and simple cripple the Nazi war machine, bring the war close to the home of the German people until they get sick of it, bomb them till they give in.

And it worked, London, Coventry, Birmingham, Belfast and even Neuteral Dublin in the Republic of Ireland suffered in the attacks by the Luftwaffe, the British proved they could take it for as long as it took aid to reach them from the USA.

Without the sacrifices of the US Eigth Airforce and Royal Air Force bomber crews, Europe as we know it today would be quite a differet place, we would all be speaking German and any non-ayrans among us serving as slaves to the Nazis, intil they tired of us and sent us on to the camps to be processed.

Kevin in Deva

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2540336503643088002

Off topic but it mentions bombers

it all depends on the propaganda.
he's just as a war criminal as any who deliberatly targetet civilians, no matter how his "strategy" (which failed) is being re-labeled.

actually it's without the sacrifice of the russian soldier, because without them, there would be no D-Day, or air offensive after '43.

The Nazi party was not all that Corrupt. I can think other partyes that are way more corrupt. They are all located in your beloved free western democratic world.
I can only think of the American Elections of that time, with confetti and those stupid Straw hats everywhere.
The military was badly maintained ? What-the-hell-are-you-talking-about ?
... It was the best "" "" maintained "" "" army of it's time. It was an example for all the others. Ask the russians who entered romania in 1944 how well heir military were maintained. The average Mojhik from the lower ranks wanted a bottle of vodka, cigarettes and civilian clothes to get the hell out of the red army.. and were asking romanian peoples to provide them with these things. How can you even say the "nazis" had a badly maintained army, when they were getting the best equipment of any army before and during the war..
Lived on terror ? All systems live on terror. I live "in" terror not to get arrested by CISIS or FBI and chardged with being a Terrorist after 911, or sent to Guantanamo for Torture where ill be put in a monkey cage in orange suit or used as human mop to clean my own urine.
Nazis did not terrorize their own as much, or spy on their own as much as the Soviets did it to themselves and other countries they held in cluding romania, or the STASI who reported how you folded your underwear for example.. or even the Corrupt & terrorizing US system along with FEMA, CIA, FBI who spy on their own citizens and who are probably seeing what im typing right now and not liking it.
Tough - see if i care

If the Germans were so good how come they lost??

Your post is the pathetic whinning of a neo-nazi supporter,

The States that formed Germany suffered very little material damage in WW1, German soldiers marched home from the trenches still carrying their weapons, the Kaiser ran like a scared rabbit to live in Holland, Anarchy reigned in Germany

After WW1 ended, the British & French and US occupied Germany, and as for them causing the war correct me if I am wrong but I think Adolf and his mongrels invaded Poland, arranged for the Austrian Prime-Minister to be murdered, then invaded Austia, pulled the same stunt in Czecaslovakia, moved his troops into Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece etc.... what for a nice holiday, oh no that was Afrika

Conflicts in China had little to do with west, but Adolf had is boys there supplying weapons and equipment, not to mention his little non-aggression pact with his bed-mate and fellow dictator "uncle Joe" (Oh! did you did know he was an early member of the German Communist Party??)

Hitler was a maniac, hate-filled about all his many failures in life, Student = Failure, Picture Painter = Failure, he had no educational degrees, Nothing, only a big mouth to stir people up, in the end HE and only himself bought about the near ruin of the western world.

As for the German Military being the best maintained why did they place so much relience on horses?? Crap tanks, Kursk mean anything to ya??? Aircraft with very little range, Maybe you heard about the Battle of Britain.

With regards "Lived on terror ? All systems live on terror. I live "in" terror not to get arrested by CISIS or FBI and chardged with being a Terrorist after 911, or sent to Guantanamo for Torture where ill be put in a monkey cage in orange suit or used as human mop to clean my own urine."

Do you really think the CISIS or FBI would be interested in neo-nazi supporters?? they have real TERRORISTS to worry about.
anyway he is a little video clip about your hero, enjoy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2540336503643088002

[edited by admin]

New Connaught Ranger,
Terms such as Kraut, Japs, Russkies etc. are not welcomed on this board. The war has been over for more than 60 years and these insulting terms should remain in those times. Most of us have moved on and try to look at the events with more objectivity and less passion, because this is the only way to learn more.

Also, personal attacks are not welcomed. You gain nothing by insulting the other members, on the contrary.

Der Maresal, the same, insults will get you nowhere and stop playing the victim and the champion of justice.

The topic is temporarily closed, so that spirits can cool down.

Edit: Topic reopened.

If I remember, when we were doing GCSE history at school, we did cover allied bombing raids and the issues raised about them.

I think, though, receives too much attention. It isn't good to take all the allied claims at face value, as if Britain, France, USSR and US didn't also engage in some actions that were similar to the German ones.

And, looking beyond the boundries of Europe and WW2, both Britain and France had huge colonial empires, and, in India for example, there were huge famines in which millions died.

The difference would be that the Allied Nations did not set out with a deliberate policy of actually encouraging war crimes, causing starvation and so on. Whereas the Nazi Germans did, and made it almost a duty to commit war crimes.

Hitler in 1939, talking about Poland (quoted by Goebbels in his diary):

'The Fuhrer's judgement on the Poles is annihilatory. More animals than human beings...The filth of the Poles in unimaginable' etc.

Or according to Halder, again in 1939:

'it was the intention of the Fuhrer and of Goring to annihilate and exterminate the Polish people...The rest cannot be hinted at in writing etc.'

That's where it starts, with the Polish, and just gets worse.

Whereas most countries throughout the 20th c. were moving away from this kind of retarded thinking, the Nazis actively sought to implement and spread it. Even other European Fascist and authoritarian Nationalist leaders were wary of the Nazis, (Dr. Salazar, the Portuguese dictator in 1933, for example, rejecting the amoral racism of the Nazis), and the reason there crimes are in the limelight is because as well as being bestial, they had a whole ideological program to back them up and support them.

On other threads various comments have been made about the corruption of Western European Democracy and so on, but the most corrupt and evil regime of the 20th Century is Nazi Germany, all the worst tendencies in the West pushed to extremes. To associate other Nation's soldiers, and Nationalism in general with Nazism and the Nazi cause as if they were closely linked, does a grave injustice to those soldiers.

Of the Nations which fought with Germany on the Eastern Front, were any of their soldiers really interested in the kind of racial extermination war the Nazis wanted?

Should read 'most corrupt European regime' in the post above. I am not sure how Nazi germany compares with Imperial Japan, North Korea, USSR etc.

Dicussion about tank-vs-tank kill ratio has been splitted here:
http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=3578

This topic has been eaten alive too much for me to waste time replying to all the points. No one glorifies Goering for the Blitz, which resulted in the deaths of 60000 English civilians, many of them women and children. No one should gloriy Harris for Dresen which resulted in the deaths of 250000 German civilians, many of them refugess, women and children.

K

[edited by admin]

I would love to have a philisophical conversation about the definition of combatant, non-combatant and civilian. I would also love a level-headed conversation that actually critically examines the term "innocent civilian" which to me, seems to be a weaker and weaker term, and perhaps should be re-examined.

Current wars demand we look into these things. For instance, if you can target the man who repairs the airplane, why can't you target the man or woman who builds it? And if their children live with them, what then?

We are reminded that "man" is a savage creature, and what we call civilization is actually a very artificial construct.

Helmut,

You are daft, only someone like you would attempt to glorify Bomber Harris, if, of course, he was German and not English though.

This is very interesting 120mm, but I don't know enough about the philosophy of war to make a good answer.

But, here are two or three ideas I had anyway, I apologise in advance if they are no good:

1) You could say that attacking civilians does have a place in war, for some of the reasons you outlined, namely that they repair and build the planes and other weapons, attacking the civilian population aught to demoralise and weaken the fighting troops etc.

BUT

2) Is it really necessary to attack the civilians? Could you achieve the same results and win the war without doing so? I wonder if people thought that while attacking the civilians could be useful, it was better not to so as to avoid spreading the war, when you could defeat your enemy without involving them.

3) This argument is especially powerful if the civilians involved are taking little active, or no active role at all in the fighting or weapons production. And if the effect on production, enemy morale etc. is very small, is it justifiable, given the suffering caused to those people?

4) What are your aims in the war? How do you aim to bring it to a conclusion? Will attacking the enemy population hinder a successful peace by them becoming embittered?

Civilians were possibly classed as innocent because, perhaps, they played no role in the political process that led to the decision to go to war as well, and had no choice in the matter.

I think there is always a balance going on, where people try at the same time to limit the scale of involvement in the violent aspects of war (e.g. by artificially deciding, or both sides agreeing, not to involve civilians even if they do in some contribute to the war effort.), but also, when people become desperate to win, they often throw away these scruples, and start to attack civilians.

True story: At the beginning of the Iraq war, we were receiving mortar fire from a particular location. Generally, it was ignored, but sooner or later, someone decided to do something about it. Artillery shot some counter-battery, but always too late, as the motar firers would drop some rounds and run.

And then, one night, a howitzer had a defective charge, and one round fell short, right into a house in the path of the mortar. This house was a multi-family dwelling and several women and children were killed and injured. We were all broken up by the tragedy of it all, but.... Whereas we were receiving mortar fire every night before, it stopped for over a month.

It is not much of a jump to use this example to go to an "ends justifies the means" scenario. Obviously, shelling this house was an effective operation, though it was completely unplanned and accidental. It was not particularly "moral", however. Though the tactical effectiveness still kind of bugs me.

I have an elderly friend who flew B17Fs and -Gs from 1943 on during WWII. I once asked him about hitting innocent civilians during bombing raids, and he replied by retorting, "What in h*ll makes them so special? If a government is prepared to send soldiers to their death, it's only fair for the civilians who support that government to be allowed to die, too."

I waver back and forth on this issue, but sometimes I think "going Roman" is the most painless way ifor all involved, n the long run.

Helmut Von Moltke, please refrain from stirring things up. Next time I will delete the entire post.

Let's put some faces to the dry numbers and arguments:

"Sie fielen dem Fliegerangriff auf Matrei am 22. März 1945 zum Opfer."

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on September 22, 2006 08:46 pm

Off-topic discussion was moved here: http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?showtopic=3601