Worst War Crimes of WW2?

I chose holocaust I still don't know why people dislike Jews even today.........
Why do people still hate Jews?

 

Hi Sloniksp,

i am outing myself as the one who has voted for the allied bombings in 1945.

Let me explain why.

The Holocaust was the worst crime that was ever made by the Germans. No doubt. But from my point of view it wasn´t a warcrime it was a long planned crime against humanity. The KZ´s were long planned before the war began. Like Dachau and an other one near Berlin. The SS and Hitler and some others planned to execute the whole Jewish population in Europe befor the war began. In my eyes are warcrimes actions that happens often out of the situation and weren´t long planned, or were lead by extra inhuman soldiers no matter which rank they are. The Crimes against Russian civilist and POW´s are warcrimes and the worst ones too! The same is for the warcrimes that happened at China or against allied POW´s. An other point is that we have to divide the members of the SS and the Wehrmacht which were involved in warcrimes and the others that weren´t. The next to see is that the few that would act against such "Killer troops" were killed by themselves and than you have to see what could happen to family members of those men. I am sure that you heard about "Sippenhaft" and the things that could happen to arrested family members. So it wasn´t easy to escape the Nazi terror. The reason why i voted the allied bombings is that the British Air Marshal Arthur Harris followed his own personally rules to erase German Cities from the surface. As i said at an other Thread, it wasn´t neccessary nor important to bomb destroyed cities for his own personal revenge for London, Coventry and other Britsh cities. So i say that Harris made warcrimes, not the bomber crews they did their jobs. The Germans did a lot of warcrimes but was it right for Harris to put himself on the same level like them? During wartimes a few people had to make hard decisions and i am glad that i didn´t had to make them, but in my opinion this decisions were to make with the lowest possible civilian victims no matter which side the were.
At last, if you had relatives on the Russians side (maybe) and i have some that came from Königsberg and ended at Dresden, you will see it more out of their sight and that didn´t give you a neutral point of view.

Maybe that you can follow and accept my voting. If not discuss it with me if you want.

Regards

Ulrich

 

People have always hated Jews, most of the time because of religious views. Others believe that they're all rich and control the world banking (does anyone know a poor Jew?). The Middle East hates them because of the whole Isreal thing. They're also another minority, so people will always pick on them for fun.

 

Except German brutality was already being perpetrated before any significant partisan activity took place. Hitler, after knowing of Stalin's call for guerrilla movements, was reported to be "visibly excited" and proclaimed that "this partisan war is not without its advantages... we will shoot anyone who even looks askance at us". This expresses a clear intent to use the war against the partisans to commit genocide.

German units on anti-partisan operations often took the local population census and simply executed anyone listed as being Jewish. This however was the kind of behavior their commanders expected of them. Von Manstein's orders to his troops was:

Eric Hoeppner noted to his troops that the Wehrmacht soldier in the East was not a fighter who must follow international laws, but "the bearer of a racial idea"; Reichenau told his soldiers their objectives were the extermination of Bolshevism and Jews.

One German unit (12th ID, IIRC) killed all male inhabitants in a village and burned its buildings to the ground because the division ran into a mine a couple of kilos from where the hapless inhabitants lived. 2nd SS Cavalry Brigade, operating in the Pripyat marshes, recorded all of the male Jewish farmers they murdered as "bandits". The standard operating procedure, apparently, was to grab a Russian male, bring him to the commanding officer who would decide if he was to be shot. Jews were killed "out of hand". Then they tried to drive the women and children into the waters to drown, but the mud was too shallow.

Police battalions and security divisions were also responsible for many extermination operations, some of which not recorded in their unit histories. One soldier's diary recorded that they had all male Jews in a village killed because one of their men was shot by a sniper.

Basically, civilians slaughtered were known to be unarmed civvies but the troops did not care or was ordered not to make that distinction. Jews were marked for destruction because the Germans already presumed them to be partisans. This isn't non-sense that I chose to make up in the evening, but materials that had been researched and reviewed.

I do not deny that sometimes German troops might have mistaken villagers for partisans and killed them by accident. But there were enough evidence to show that much of that killing was not accidental.

 

Yes, there was. But the institution by and large was pro-Nazi.

According to M. Gegaree, it was an official order to "ruthlessly" strip clothing from Russian POWs and civilians. The survival of prisoners and civilians was not a factor for the OKH & OKW higher-ups.

Come, come. You know as well as I do that the Nazis set themselves up as the anti-Bolshevik crusaders of Europe long before they took the reins. They had been battling communists on the streets of Berlin from day 1.

Nuremberg was supposed to have solved that. I am not saying that it was easy to do the right thing, but following that premise, soldiers would have been implicated by following orders. Those who didn't were dealt with mercilessly, but that only reinforce my argument. The German Army knew what was going on.

That I do not know.

Journalist/historian Ron Rosenbaum wrote of this in several articles accessibly online.

S. Twogood, The Munich Post: its undiscovered effects on Hitler

This obviously said nothing about murdering the Jews outright, but the public must have known it was nothing nice. There was the Kristalnacht, overt, public acts of violence against Jews, and so forth.

The German troops were executing POWs before partisan activity became a relevant military factor. They had standing orders to execute prisoners of Jewish descent or held communist party memberships. They were also killing civilians, en masse, in a systematic manner, as a matter of pre-mediated policy. It wasn't a spur of the moment thing. It was SOP.

 

Btw, the "Just War" theory (talk about double entente!) states that when a war has a just cause, then it is justified to use a level of violence that was commensurate to the effort required to prosecute the war to a successful conclusion, or to do evil that was not greater than the good that victory would bring. So Harris can be exonerated on the grounds that acting on the best information available, he did what he believed was necessary to win and no more. Whether that statement would be true, I don't know.

 

"it wasnt necessary nor important to bomb cities for his own personal revenge..."..(quote from Gebirgsjeager)

Beg to differ on that point.

Lets address the issue right from the top. The German people were activly involved in the prosecution of WW2. Nazism and the National Socialist movement were voted into power. German civilians were right behind the Luftwaffe policy of Terror Bombing, and got more than the measure of their own back.

During the First World War, two things happened from the German perspective that made bombing both necessary and the correct course of action in the second round. The first was the indiscriminate bombing of British targets by Zeppelin airships, (both Army and Navy). Later, the campaign continued with the use of the Gotha aircraft to achieve maximum damage. This campaign was initiated by Imperial Germany.

The second occurance made bombing a virtual certainty. The very nature of the defeat of German military forces was coupled with a realisation by the Army that German territory was untouched. This lead to the very dangerous post-Versailles impression of the "Stab in the back", a platform policy that did much to win support for National Socialism. I ask, would the German nation have felt the same way about the results of the Second World War if their cities were NOT reduced to rubble in the process?

German defeat in 1945 was plain for all to see. No post Nazi regime ideas of a "stab in the back" in 1945. Bombing civilian towns brought the consequences of the collective action of the German people right back to their own doorstep.

The Allied bomber offensive tied down over a million people to man the defences against it, servicing over 12,000 artillery pieces that would have been well used on the Eastern Front, and using up millions of rounds of ammunition.

The day to day struggle for supremacy in the skies over Germany sapped German airpower dry, causing much wastage of trained pilots.

Both these factors could have been a more than decisive element in the conflict in Russia.

To my way of thinking, operations over Germany collapsed the Reich internally. The gradual nature of the offensive meant that certain key decisions regarding the allocation of resources to meet this threat were botched, including aircraft production priorities and inadequate allocation of resources to combat nightime raids.

Had Germany thrown their air assets behind the efforts of Kammhuber to begin with, they would almost certainly have been able to make Portal and Churchill REMOVE Arthur Harris, and possibly to stop the nightime incursions altogether. The fact that they did not is a black mark against the wartime leadership of Germany.

Germany entered the post-war era with the firm idea that, this time, they had come out on the losing end of the conflict. Bombing may not have cracked morale, but it put WAR WEARINESS into the minds of the German people. When the homeland was invaded, the resistance was niether fanatical, nor long lasting....

And we can thank the Allied bomber offensive for that.

References to operations like Dresden as "war crimes" are so much Neo-Nazi propaganda. If you had listened to "Der Dicke" in 1938, you may well have taken the opportunity to replace Adolf Hitler with a more moderate Nazi...and Goring would have done the job well. The Nazi regime, without a war, may have been the longest serving government in Europe, as Franco's dictatorship became. But the German people were swept away in their enthusiasm for conflict.....and Harris just happened to be the man that put into practice something that Goring thought was unlikely.


We tried leaflets, but German propaganda laughed at that, claiming that the "Reich supply of toilet paper had been taken care of."

We tried selective bombing of precision targets in daylight, and the Luftwaffe hooted at that too...

Then Arthur Harris arrived and put into practice something that the Luftwaffe had been doing quite well, but took it to a scale that they never conceived...

And, all of a sudden, Germany wasn't laughing anymore.

 

You are missing the point the allies were not aiming to do that hell they were not even hitting Industrial targets half the time they were following a little tactic called terror bombing they were trying to target the civilians on purpose to make them make the government surrender.
This was a tactic invented by Italian air Enthusiast who thought the next great war would be fought and one in the air they were wrong though they would play a great advantage to side who gains control of this dangerous yet potential new weapon.............

 

Hi Volga Boatman,

you have some interesting points and some theories.

You stated the german bombings in WWI as an reason to bomb them back in WWII.
Can be seen as a good reason or can be seen as a reason for a cheap revenge. I don´t say that bombings on military industry was wrong, no thats ok and neccessary. Bombing the infrastructure, important. Bombing military targets very important. Bombing of gouvernment facilities absolutely correct. But bombing civilians short before the war ends absolutely not neccessary! And dont think i am seeing it only out of an Germans sight. The German bombings of Coventry, Warszaw and many other cities weren´t neccessary and a warcrime too.
If you were reading different books on the bombing of Dresden you will see that it was nothing like wasting bombs. And i don´t mean the cheap Neonazi books.Do you really believe that the resistance of the Germans were fanatically after this long war and the heavy losses of men and resources? I don´t think so. Not only for the reason that the civilians were tired of the war, with what should they had resist? With to less of cheap built weapons, with tanks that were running out of ammo and fuel, with artillery that had reported not more than 3-5 rounds per day in average? I am not sure that you can beat a well equipped army with crap. Dont forget that Germany isn´t like Japan. So what brings you to the idea that the Germans has an special enthusiasm for war? The Versailles treaty is an good example to show of why such a thing like the Nazis had a chance, but this is stuff for an other Thread.
And please dont say that i use Nazi-Propaganda for my point of view, i am adult and no believer of their childish sh§§! Thank you.

Regards

Ulrich

 

I may be wrong, but I have no knowledge of a city bombed solely for the "terror bombing" value of doing so. Can you name one raid where the target was to be bombed only for this purpose? In other words, one target that was hit (on purpose) that had no military purpose and military/defense industries?

Dresden may be the only exception, but even then, it was a major German city and had numerous important defense industries, in addition to being a transportation hub. I won't justify the bombing, but based solely on those factors, it wasn't hit only for the purpose of terrorizing civilians.

 

Dresden,Berlin,Hamburg Their was not really a point in bombing German industrial targets because it turns out they were making more equipment in 1944 than in 1943 the German army was better equip in 1944/43 than in the beginning in the war.
The raids on the German oil fields and air attacks on the ships caring their iron ore from Scandinavia and other important resources is what hurt the German industry and military the most.
O and plus why bomb city enters and downtown?

 

I won't try to justify any of these bombings, but these were not done solely for the point of terrorizing civilians. All of the sites you listed had military value.

Dresden (I added to my message, but I guess I didn't add it fast enough): It was home to important defense industries, was a transportation hub and was the largest untouched city in terms of allied bombing at the time of the attack. Industries included artillery, optics, engine components; in addition to munitions stockpiles.

Hamburg: Also home to numerous defense industries, a large port and shipbuilding industry and military fortifications including command centers and U-Boat pens. It was also an important oil production area, and transportation hub. I should also add that the firestorm that emerged from this bombing was unintentional.

Berlin: Berlin was home to the German dictatorship, and all military high commands. Important transportation hub and also home to immense military fortifications (all of which would have to be destroyed sooner of later before the Allies were planning on taking Berlin). Bombing Berlin was also an attempt to imobilize the German command structure and create confusion within the Wehrmacht commands.

The German oil fields were raided (Americans hit Romania several times, and the Russians handled the ones out of range), and later in the war when British anti-shipping aircraft could reach Scandinavia, they ripped the shipping apart. Keep in mind you cannot attack a ship at sea using heavy bombers, it requires smaller, low-altitude aircraft such as Bristol Beaufighters. Check what was the result of the B-17 raids launched against the Japanese at Midway. I am going to add that Germany and Austria were also home to major oil refineries, which were hit often. Without refineries, your crude oil isn't going to help you much. Raids on Romania were costly (they were low altitude affairs), so it was much more effecient to attack the German industries who used them. Crude products are just that - crude. You can always find them in many places, but if you don't have the machinery to refine them into something you can work with, you are in trouble, and this machinery was much more difficult to replace.

And why did they attack downtown? High priority targets were always railways and road systems, most of which ran through the main parts of the cities at this time. There were few "highways" back then that completely bypassed the cities. Most military units had offices and headquarters in the "downtown" portions, also making then appealing targets - and many people working in defense industries lived downtown, and they were viewed as viable targets.

Please provide proof that the German army was better equipped in 1944 than at the beginning of the war. The Germans never planned on being fully militarized and ready for war until at least 1943 (especially the Kreigsmarine), and for proof look at why they relied heavily upon captured French and Czech tanks in the early stages of the war until 1942. By better equipped, do you mean that (for example) the Panzer V was a better tank than the Panzer II? Or the STG 44 was better than the MP40? Of course this is true, but these are evolutions of weapons designs (in other words, the technology advanced), not simply due to the claim that allied bombing had no effect on the German war industry. If the bombing had no effect, why was production of new U-boat types minimal, and such was the case for many tanks. There are multiple reasons, but this is due in no small part to the fact that raw materials and the machinery required to produce them into viable products were very limited in the later stages of the conflict.

Seeing problems in hindsight is easy, but did the Germans know in 1939 that in 4 years they would be fielding 60-ton tanks? Or that the Russians would be using more effective tanks than them by 1942? Of course not. It is important to think in terms of the situation at the time, and try not the think in hindsight.

 

There is a certain degree in which bombing a city is justified. To take out its factories is ok, but to bomb the city AFTER destroying the factories is unjust and is certainly a war crime. Simply because Germany started the war doesn't make it right to bomb its civilians. Thats like saying all Germans were Nazis, and Allied propaganda at the time definately put them in that perspective. I don't remember if I said it earlier, but if you have soldiers who are scared to go out and fight, filling them with enough propaganda making the enemy look subhuman will make it easier for them to pull the trigger. Allied soldiers shot German prisoners, are their actions justified because they're "krauts"? The simple fact is every country committed war crimes during WWII, to say the Allies were free of war crimes because they were trying to rid Europe of tyranny is a completely biased and ridiculous statement.

 

The allied strategic bombing raids was not completely concentrate on the German industry and German production on tanks almost doubled in 1943.Planes increased by 80% and Submarines was reduced from 2years of production to a mere 2 months. These numbers continued to increase until the second half of 1944 when the Germans made enough equipment for 270 army divisions and the Whermatch only fielded 150 divisions.

 

Proof or citation, please? By the second half of 1944, the average german division was badly depleted, possessing few operation tanks, and was badly in need of refurbishment.

I also never said that bombing completely concentrated on German industry - I said it was not concentrated on solely "terror bombing of civilians", which you said it was.

If your figures are accurate, I am sure they refer to factory production (in other words "how many rolled out of the main door") as opposed to how many reached the front. Getting supplies to the front was no easy task - the western transportation hubs were decimated by allied bombing, and you must also factor in what percentage of this production was destroyed in the allied raids. With this in mind, it I cannot take it as proof that the divisions were better equipped. Production means nothing unless you can get it to the front. It is also impossible to tell from your figures what percentage was sent to the Soviet or Western fronts, and more importantly, where it was produced. Allied bombers could not fly much further than Berlin, meaning that factories and industrial centers to the east were able to continue production at a near-normal pace. But, since the transportation networks of the western portions of Central Europe were decimated, it was difficult to move vehicles and supplies from the east to the west. Allied bombing also tied down large numbers of troops and supplies, who had to devote time to protect the cities and clean up the rubble. These would have been put to much better use at the front. Allied bombing definetly helped the allies significantly, but I don't know to what extent it helped the Soviets. You also must look at the effect of the other aspects of the allied air forces (mainly fighter-bombers). With transportation hubs imobilized and troops concentrated to protect the cities, units and vehicles were forced to feign escorts and travel though less-protected areas. Here they were easy pickings for the "jabos".

It is important to look at the whole picture if you want to guage the effects of Allied bombing. To look only at one aspect would defeat the purpose of the campaign. One unit or one aspect of the campaign is not the only reason why the enemy is defeated - it is a combination of all elements (in this case, the heavy bombers, the medium bombers and the single engine planes; in addition of course to the ground and naval units).

However, the impact of allied bombing is another issue entirely. The initial issue was whether the allied bombed solely for the purpose of "terror bombing".

 

O know I'm not talking about of reaching the front and that stuff a lot of those equipment was crude and poorly made due to the lack of alloys and as you said alot of the transportation hubs were taken out.
And a lot of the equipment was not able to reach the western front.
Because the Russians were not in to bombing industries but supporting front line units they usually bombed targets 3-4 miles behind enemy lines to support attacks. You may have been right about eastern Germany being more quiet but i don't think the Germans had the time or the resources to spare to move their factories.

 

Absolutely. Lots of the equipment was crude - this was due to both improvised factories (many of the main ones were destroyed, so the Germans were forced to improvise), and of course due to poor quality raw materials. As I said before, one aspect of a campaign is not enough to take down your enemy, just as one factor is never responsible for defeat.

That's also true about the Russians. They placed very little emphasis on strategic bombing, and mainly used air power to support attacks. In doing such, they often faced the full fury of German industry, whereas in many cases the western allies did not.

By the time the war ended, the Germans were in progress of moving much of their industrial facilities underground and privatizing them - the latter in a way much like that seen in Japan. A V2 assembly plant was operational outside Salzburg, Austria, and fighters were being produced in the mountains (including one outside of Vienna which I have seen myself). There is also a spot in Poland (the name escapes me know), where Panthers were produced inside a converted mine.

 

That is a painful thing to read, would it be possible for you to do something with it so it would appear you care about your question and the other members of this forum?

 

Whats wrong with it?

 

Ack, second time rewriting this due to browser issues.

In terms of party support alone, at it's peak only 10% of Germany had supported the Nazi's through membership at any one time. The Nazi's had also forced Germans to join the party using intimidation tactics. Threatening a store owner that you will shut him down if he doesn't join the party or instance.

Membership in the military was forbidden and only allowed in mid 43 to boost figures a bit more and to allow a wave of loyal party supporters to join. Basically what this meant before the rule was abolished was that anyone who was in the military could not have kept their position if they held any affiliation to a political party in terms of membership. This was a decades old rule in Germany and was done to ensure a bias would not exist.

Perhaps, but it's also undeniable that as the war would progress the Axis in Russia was running out of supplies.

Do you know what the order was called?

The Wehrmacht had an alliance of sorts with the Soviet government, one of the partnerships was that the Germans would train Russian soldiers and the Russians would allow Germany to finish post World War I experiments that couldn't have been completed in Germany any more. There was plenty more to it but I believe this lasted into the mid 30s.

Lets not forget the cooperation after 39 and the fact that Lenin could only gain power due to Germany influence or the Soviet Union's role in post WW1 Germany.

The Allies weren't that ruthless and only did so in severe cases, decisions made against Germany could have applied in reverse as well to a certain extent. Like I said before, as the war drew on the number who had some degree of knowledge would grow. Exactly how much this was or if it was enough to do anything is of course hard to determine. Too many factors are involved.

The Jewish Question did not start with the Nazi's but was something present in Europe for centuries. In Germany specifically potential answers over the years ranged from assimilation into German society (which many Jews began doing in the late 1800s) to giving Jews their own homeland. Hitler's was the most extreme of course.

Two 1933 Nazi Articles on the Jews

The discussion became pretty prominent when the Nazi's came to power, many different ideas were brought to the table. The Haavara Agreement was also signed around this time, making an accurate decision as to where the party was going would be pretty difficult.

That specific article was published in 1931 and to what scale is unknown. Meaning, did people in Cologne, Berlin, etc see it? Did people still remember it when The Night of Broken Glass happened?

In other words, it was a confusing time and further research is probably needed.

Executing POW's during an offensive was not uncommon and not exclusive to Germany either. During an offensive you often lack the means to be able to support such a population in a safe manner, it's unfortunate that such measures are taken but they were done.

The Jewish descent thing existed globally but not everyone was following through with them. Some would execute or send Jewish prisoners to concentration camps, others would simply disregard the order. It basically depended on the person in charge.

Partisan activity was present from day one, since they are largely unorganized it is difficult to crush such movements or get an accurate measure of how many there are, how many are active, etc. This of course got worse over time especially in Russia.

Which civilians specifically?