Churchill war criminal, says German historian

[Chris 62]

German Industry bank rolled Hitler.

War, you make ME sick with your "Germany is innocent" crap.

Germany started a world war and manged to kill millions.

Too F*CKING bad it got bombed.

Your an idiot to appologize for those creeps.

[Tripledoc]

It's a simple question - who bankrolled Hitler?
You don't have to explode.
You are the idiot for apologizing for Dulles and the other financiers of the 30s.
This is not an apology for Hitler. International finance was on the supply side - Hitler on the demand side of the issue.

[Traianvs]

well wasn't it Johnson that said: "War is a necessary evil, but it is still an evil"


So in a way winston did some nasty things... we always see the germans on TV like they were the vicious merciless killers, but in the end the normal population was just the same as all the other pops in britain etc...


Obviously their leaders were a little less innocent, but well, they had a good propaganda system, a bit comparable to that of the United States at the moment, i hear most americans prefer a good nice war in iraq? => shows that the US have good propaganda... normally people don't want a war=> bodybags coming back home isn't cool

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Tripledoc
It's a simple question - who bankrolled Hitler?

Asked and answered.

You don't have to explode.

?

You are the idiot for apologizing for Dulles and the other financiers of the 30s.

You talking to me?
The real culprits for WWII are Hitler, Tojo, and the allied apeasement governments, in that order.

This is not an apology for Hitler. International finance was on the supply side - Hitler on the demand side of the issue.

An ambigous statement.

If your trying to make a point, it isn't clear.

[DRoseDARs]

Good to see politics are taking a playgroundish turn in the EU. Now they're displaying the high-quality professionalism we've come to expect from our OWN politicians here in the United States...

[Tripledoc]

I just find it strange that the Anglo-Americans would first banroll Hitler and his industrialist cronies - not moving an inch to help the social democrats when they were in power.
Then later when the firebombing starts they begin to target the workers quarters - where there was real oppostion to Hitler - into burning rubble.

How do you explain that from a moral - nay political - viewpoint.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Chris 62

War, you make ME sick with your "Germany is innocent" crap.

Germany started a world war and manged to kill millions.

Too F*CKING bad it got bombed.

Your an idiot to appologize for those creeps.

Learn to read before posting nonsense like accusing me of thinking that Germany was innocent. Your continuing stupidities give you the honor to be #1 on my ignore list.
Fez is at least sometimes hillarious funny.

[Chris 62]

I consider you a moron War, so who gives a rat's behind about your ignore list?

Your attempting to apply modern morality to 1940s events, only an idiot would even attempt it.

I just find it strange that the Anglo-Americans would first banroll Hitler and his industrialist cronies - not moving an inch to help the social democrats when they were in power.
Then later when the firebombing starts they begin to target the workers quarters - where there was real oppostion to Hitler - into burning rubble.

How do you explain that from a moral - nay political - viewpoint.

Back to the real discussion...

Hitler's politics were extremly popular not just in Germany.
He had MANY admirers in the USA, including the US ambassador to England, Joseph Kennedy, and the famous avator Charles Lindberg (Lucky lindy was a BIG time racist, some of his recorded speaches would make a clansmen proud, he's on the record for wanting to live in a "Jew free nation").

As for Strategic bombing, Harris subscribed to the Italian airial theorist Dohet's idea that "The bomber will always get through", and that nations could be bombed into submission.

This idea had a large appeal to Churchill, it would require NO large ground army with appalling casualties as in WWI, in fact, no invasion at all was the goal, it was the US that insisted that a cross-channell invasion was the main allied goal.
It also had a added revenge factor, as Britain had been heavily bombed by Germany before any serious attepmt was made by Bomber Command (even in 1941, a British bomber was lucky to have a bomb land withen 25 MILES of the target point).
The US favored precision bombing in daylight, the British preferred night area bombing, another reason for this was British bombers could not survive by daylight (Britain's at war start heavy bomber was the Witley, not an effective type), and since Britian's tiny field army was engaged in Africa, the middle and far east, this was a way to strike back at Germany.

Bombing would not be effective untill 1944, when the correct target was selected, German transportation.

[Ned]

To the Brits, you have several times said you were taught that area bombing of German civilians was "justified."

What was the justification?

[Chris 62]

Ned, the USAAC did the SAME THING, actually worse to Japan.

[Inverse Icarus]

it's stupid to take the moral high ground in a war. the side that is willing to do whatever it takes to win, no matter how horrific, is most likely going to win. when you take the high road, you just fall down further.

after ww2, america quasi-adopted this moral high ground stuff, like in Somalia where our troops couldn't fire first at enemies. horrible.

in vietnam, the veitnamese did whatever it took to not only win strategic points on the battlefield, but also to keep the local populus believing in the cause, and hating the americans. for instance, the Americans went out of their way to give veitnamese children shots to protect from some diseases, and the veitnamese chopped off their arms and went on some propaganda campagin that america was trying to kill them.

it was horrible. and they won.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Christ. If they read up on what Churchill did to the Kurds then they'd probably soil themselves in horror....

[Chris 62]

They also are praised loud and often by the Left Uber.

That post is precisly what I think about the matter.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Ned
To the Brits, you have several times said you were taught that area bombing of German civilians was "justified."

What was the justification?

They looked a bit foreign. It's a justification that served the English well over the preceding 1000 years, so why bother thinking up a new one?

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Christ. If they read up on what Churchill did to the Kurds then they'd probably soil themselves in horror....

I was just reading about that last week Laz.

Quite a notion, control colonies by indescriminte bombing, but they later did give slight notice.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by Drogue
Well, that's the way you think it is. We are still entitled to disagree. Germany didn't start area bombing either. Even in Britain we're taught that we started it, even though it was 'justified'.

I wasn't taught that. I seem to have been taught an alternate history.

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by UberKruX
for instance, the Americans went out of their way to give veitnamese children shots to protect from some diseases, and the veitnamese chopped off their arms and went on some propaganda campagin that america was trying to kill them.

I head precisely that story related by colonol Kurtz (Marlon Brando) in the movie 'Apocalyse Now' by Francis Ford Coppola.

Whether it is fact or fiction I am unsure...

[Jaakko]

Harboring vindictiveness for events 60 years past is a fun way to pass the time it seems.
I got to say, to me the most important thing is to remember the lessons learned, both the fact that area bombing of cities doesn't work, and that starting a genocidal campaign is rightly going to get you a lot of motivated enemies.

But if ya feel like identifying with butchers on either side, go ahead.

[Buck Birdseed]

Surely area bombing goes back considerably futher than the second world war, or even the airplane era. Or does massive bobmbardment of civilians from Gunships not count? That goes back to the early-to-mid 19th century at the very least, used extensively in during "wars" in African colonies.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Drogue
Well, that's the way you think it is. We are still entitled to disagree. Germany didn't start area bombing either. Even in Britain we're taught that we started it, even though it was 'justified'.

Germany bombed Posnan and Warsaw within the first few weeks of the war. Britain hadn't even gotten its air force into position by that time.

Has there ever been a war in which once one side has committed atrocities the other hasn't responded in kind? Remember how the Germans started chemical warfare during WWI? At least the allies didn't attempt a "final solution" to the German problem. It should also be pointed out that the Germans eventually deliberately farmed out their war materials production to residential areas in an attempt to protect them from Allied bombing. Using civilians as a shield is considered a war crime.

In the 1930s military theorists had already predicted the use of strategic bombing of cities as a means of winning wars. Even though diplomats at the time were busy trying to limit other aspects of warfare no one seemed to object enough to this idea to convene an international summit.

[HazieDaVampire]

"WELL YOU STARTED IT!"
"NO WE DIDN'T!"
"YES YOU DID, YOU INVADED POLAND!"

Anyways, they can all **** off, after the war we let some of our militery personal stay in Germany and rebuild the car industry!
BMW, and the PeoplesCar wouldn't be there, well, they would, but they'd probubly be in league with Second hand car dealers!

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Buck Birdseed
Surely area bombing goes back considerably futher than the second world war, or even the airplane era. Or does massive bobmbardment of civilians from Gunships not count? That goes back to the early-to-mid 19th century at the very least, used extensively in during "wars" in African colonies.

i suppose it'd be slightly easier to blame area bombings via bombardment on miscalculations than planes flying overhead looking down at the cultural center of germany

still sickening though, but war is war. i see "war crimes" and "rules of war" as oxymorons. "crimes against humanity" though are quite different. which category does dresden fall into? that's a tough one for me, as i do not know enough about the particulars to decide.

please correct me and fill me in as you see fit:

dresden was a cultural center for germany that the alled forces fire-bombed to cinders. was there any industry there? rumors of any industry? any reason other than terrorism to bomb it?

thanks in advance.

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by UberKruX


any reason other than terrorism to bomb it?

thanks in advance.

Stalin requested it.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by UberKruX
dresden was a cultural center for germany that the alled forces fire-bombed to cinders. was there any industry there? rumors of any industry? any reason other than terrorism to bomb it?

I don't know about the reasoning, but the living hell was bombed out of the historical core of the city and residental areas, while the barracks in the north of the city, the airport and the plane factory got only a few occasional (probably misleaded) bombs, that did no significant damage. All in all, it looks like pure terror, nothing else.

[David Floyd]

I still haven't heard an adequate answer to the question of "Why is it OK for us to murder people just because our enemy does it?"

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by David Floyd
I still haven't heard an adequate answer to the question of "Why is it OK for us to murder people just because our enemy does it?"

Especially when it fails to further war aims in any meaningful degree.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by UberKruX


dresden was a cultural center for germany that the alled forces fire-bombed to cinders. was there any industry there? rumors of any industry? any reason other than terrorism to bomb it?

Like I said up above, by 1944 and 1945 the Germans had moved a lot of parts manufacturing and assembly to small shops in residential areas. IIRC Dresden was supposed to be involved in the manufacture of airplane parts.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Especially when it fails to further war aims in any meaningful degree.

One truly major misapprehension of the strategic bombing campaign was the notion that Germany's electric power generation grid was too spread out to be significantly damaged. We know now that hitting even a small part of a power grid can so overload the rest that it all comes down. If the allies had allocated even a fraction of their strategic bombing to power plants they could have brought German production to a stand still.

[Imran Siddiqui]

it's stupid to take the moral high ground in a war. the side that is willing to do whatever it takes to win, no matter how horrific, is most likely going to win. when you take the high road, you just fall down further.

Exactly! You hit it on the nail Uber.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


Like I said up above, by 1944 and 1945 the Germans had moved a lot of parts manufacturing and assembly to small shops in residential areas. IIRC Dresden was supposed to be involved in the manufacture of airplane parts.

I've never seen anything supporting this. Dresden was not involved with any manufacturing, nor did we have any intelligence to make us think it was. It was bombed solely because it was one of the few cities we had yet to bomb.