Churchill war criminal, says German historian - Page 7

Bugs ****ing Bunny · January 16, 2003, 18:27

Dresden's quite understandable, really.

Big plane full of bombs.

City full of highly breakable and poncey china.

Boys will be boys.

Tripledoc · January 16, 2003, 18:45

Quote:

Originally posted by molly bloom

As for Nazi Germany exploiting labour- what a delicate turn of phrase . 'Perhaps betraying a lack of humanity', oh, you mean pursuing a racist policy of working to death Slav workers, do you? The conditions under which Polish and Russian prisoners of war were required to work contravened any accepted rules of war, and moreover, any standards of common human decency. Something which in your revisionist zeal to excuse or downplay Nazi war crimes you seem to have overlooked.

I fail to see how I am downplaying Nazi crimes. I just find it interesting that the Nazi wer economy was laid down along an imposition of a racial hierachy. The Scandinavians in the Nazi worldview belonging to the Aryan race and thus the top of the ladder.

Today the Western economies are of course wholly blind to the issue of race - or what?

molly bloom · January 16, 2003, 21:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Tripledoc

My claims are not based on revisonism, but seeks to compare the industrial capacity of the UK and Germany. In these developments we surely see general trends for post war Europe. Hence the destruction of German cities and most precisely their workforce was based on the fact that the British needed to destroy German industrial capacity, not to win the war - but to gain an advantage in post war European economy, and in that the British of course failed.

Germany lost the war, yet is now the dominant industrial power in Europe. How are you to explain that if you continue to stick to anti-revisionist romanticism which for all intents and purposes is just an attempt to
keep people in place and make them think that wars are fought on such intangibles as human rights, freedom and democracy - when in fact evidence in terms of economic development shows that wars are a result of shifts or shocks in the world economy.

The British Empire was exploitative too - there were actually widespread starvation in the Asian parts of the British Empire prior to the second world war.

Unlike you I suspect, I have actually read Orwell's accounts of his experiences in Britain's Eastern Empire provinces. His general conclusion was that the British Empire was the least bad of all the great Colonial empires- not that it was perfect. However, the British did not construct their empire with the avowed policy of starving their a large part of their workforce to death- or transforming citizenry into ash and lampshades.

Your analysis of Britain's war aims is so seriously flawed, I can only imagine you inhabit some cloud cuckoo land of your own revisionist construction, such that no amount of facts, figures or contradictory evidence would ever hope to persuade you that the views you expound so blithely are both offensive and incorrect.

Yes, Germany lost the war- and then reconstruction aided by the people who had defeated it, followed. Roosevelt's primary concerns (and Truman's) both during the war and after, were to deal with the (perceived) growing Communist threat. This was not Churchill's or the British Government's outlook, as can be seen by the aid given to any anti-Nazi resistance groups during the war. So long as the groups were 'patriots for Churchill' and against Hitler, the consequences of such assistance (post-war) could be ignored.

Whilst an undamaged financially sound United States, having come largely unscathed through the war (unlike Great Britain, or France), could bankroll a peace time democratic West German state as a bulwark against the Warsaw Pact, the British were left to fend for themselves. This known as winning the war, but losing the peace- a concept familiar to most British.

I have already indicated the flaws in your economic analysis (or lack of it) of the respective war economies of Great Britain and Nazi Germany, but such seems to be your enthusiasm to ignore slave labour, illegal use of prisoners of war and the pillaging and depredation of occupied Europe, and the economic consequences of reactionary racist Nazi ideology that you leave these out of the equation.

Well, that says more about your state of mind than mine- alleged romantic anti-revisionism notwithstanding.

Ned · January 16, 2003, 22:07

Mary, You admit that Germany was badly damaged by bombing. You also admit that fast reconstruction was made possible by American aid - that Britain did not get herself. But you deny that British bombing, known even during the war to be ineffective in winning the war or in forcing its early conclusion, was at least in part motivated by post-war considerations.

Why do you deny the obvious?

molly bloom · January 16, 2003, 22:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned
Mary, You admit that Germany was badly damaged by bombing. You also admit that fast reconstruction was made possible by American aid - that Britain did not get herself. But you deny that British bombing, known even during the war to be ineffective in winning the war or in forcing its early conclusion, was at least in part motivated by post-war considerations.

Why do you deny the obvious?

Please.

Firstly, I ain't mary- whoever he or she is, girlfriend. You are again indulging in the use of hindsight after the event to decry area bombing and precision bombing.

Area bombing was used as much to buoy up Allied civilian morale as to attempt to destroy Axis civilian morale- Guernica as I have said, was the flesh being put on the bones of theory, bombing Rotterdam and Warsaw, Belgrade and civilian refugee columns in France were the Nazis putting their strategy into practice. It was not known to be ineffective during the war- and if you have any evidence that a long term primary aim of Churchill's was to be a leading economic power in Europe after the war, then you and Tripledoc can show us the proof.

Survival was what came first and defeating the Axis through survival- despite his monarchist and conservative beliefs, Churchill did not stint at aiding partisans and resistance fighters of other political beliefs, so long as they were avowedly anti-Nazi. Political concerns post war, were subordinated to the immediate task of securing the downfall of the Nazi regime.

Ned · January 17, 2003, 00:10

Molly, my apologies.

The earlier Nazi terror bombing was specifically intended to cause early surrender, not so? However, since the British terror bombing had gone on since 1940, one could reasonably conclude, could they not, that the terror bombing would not hasten a Germans surrender. It was therefor justifiable, if at all, only because it was effective in winning the war.

But, as time went on and German war production continued to climb, could one not also conclude that the terror bombing was ineffective in winning the war?

At some point during the war, reasonable people should have realized that the terror bombing campaign was not militarily justified.

Yet it continued.

I agree that the bombing probably did bouy public morale because the illusion of progress towards victory may at times be sufficient to buck up spirits.

But. in the end, was this the sole reason Harris and Churchill continued?

I am currently listent to a tape of the story of Easy Company of the 101st Airborne. At one point they describe shooting a German soldier walking between building 200 yards away. They then describe shooting him two more times as he tried to crawl to safety.

But what really disturbed me is the description of the whooping and hollering of our troops in their glee over this German soldier's suffering.

War seems to bring out the worst in us. Certainly, this was true of the British terror bombing campaign of WWII.

Dauphin · January 17, 2003, 11:12

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned
But, as time went on and German war production continued to climb, could one not also conclude that the terror bombing was ineffective in winning the war?.

Just because production increased in spite of bombing does not mean that it was ineffective. Who is to say German production wouldn't have been much greater in the absence of bombing.

Production with bombing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5....
Production without bombing 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 ....

Ecthy · January 17, 2003, 13:16

what a lousy debate

Chris and GP are still such right wing morons

Dauphin · January 17, 2003, 13:18

OMG YOU'RE ALIVE!

TCO · January 17, 2003, 13:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Ecthelion

what a lousy debate

Chris and GP are still such right wing morons

ANDZ!!!!!

We missed you. Figured you had sniffed the wrong test tube. (Just cause you're a Prussian, doesn't mean you can sniff Prussic acid. Remember. Anything ending with a CN group is evil.)

Chris is indeed the same idiot as when you left. I am worse.

Chris 62 · January 17, 2003, 14:47

Too bad we missed you, andy boy.

What brings you back to this dump?

Ned · January 17, 2003, 15:54

Quote:

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin

Just because production increased in spite of bombing does not mean that it was ineffective. Who is to say German production wouldn't have been much greater in the absence of bombing.

Production with bombing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5....
Production without bombing 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 ....

Sagacious Dolphin, I do not disagree that the bombing had some effect on reducing Germany's war production. But even you must agree that killing Grandma a Grandpa and all the kids in even on neighborhood in order to kill one German worker was and still is completely unjustified. Otherwise it would be justified for the Israelis to destroy whole city blocks just to kill one terrorist.

Proteus_MST · January 17, 2003, 16:56

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned

Sagacious Dolphin, I do not disagree that the bombing had some effect on reducing Germany's war production. But even you must agree that killing Grandma a Grandpa and all the kids in even on neighborhood in order to kill one German worker was and still is completely unjustified. Otherwise it would be justified for the Israelis to destroy whole city blocks just to kill one terrorist.

It is justified.
At least this is what People like Ariel Sharon think

Dauphin · January 17, 2003, 17:04

Quote:

Originally posted by Ned

Sagacious Dolphin, I do not disagree that the bombing had some effect on reducing Germany's war production. But even you must agree that killing Grandma a Grandpa and all the kids in even on neighborhood in order to kill one German worker was and still is completely unjustified. Otherwise it would be justified for the Israelis to destroy whole city blocks just to kill one terrorist.

It was obviously morally wrong, and was certainly not efficient. This does not mean it was ineffective though.

Ned · January 17, 2003, 17:24

SD, Next question:

Should Britain (and the US) apologize to Germany? It would be a magnanimous act for the Queen to visit the land of her ancestors and issue a formal apology.

The US should also issue an apology for Dresden and perhaps for Hamburg and Cologne.

The last time this came up in the US was with respect to the A-bombing of Japan. At that time, WWII vets put up quite a protest. I suspect the same may still happen in Britain. After all, the Queen herself was there during WWII.

Dauphin · January 17, 2003, 17:50

I would not apologise for something I had no part in, I would just express regret. Similarly I think that an expression of regret from the PM could be made, an apology is not really appropriate.

David Floyd · January 17, 2003, 17:53

Quote:

At that time, WWII vets put up quite a protest.

They would, because of all the lies and propaganda the government fed them for years. In 1940, they wouldn't have felt that way, yet once the government got ahold of them and brainwashed them, they suddenly changed their minds. ****ing government

TCO · January 17, 2003, 17:54

Quote:

Originally posted by David Floyd

They would, because of all the lies and propaganda the government fed them for years. In 1940, they wouldn't have felt that way, yet once the government got ahold of them and brainwashed them, they suddenly changed their minds. ****ing government

Remember Pearl Harbor. Payback's a *****.

David Floyd · January 17, 2003, 17:55

Pearl Harbor wouldn't have happened if the US hadn't acted like an aggressive sonofa***** in 1846 and 1898 (and in taking over Hawaii), or if they hadn't restricted free trade with Japan.

TCO · January 17, 2003, 17:56

Ludicrous.

David Floyd · January 17, 2003, 17:57

Actually it's true. If we hadn't been in the Pacific as a result of our aggressive wars in the 19th Century, Japan couldn't possibly have attacked PacFlt at Pearl Harbor. Think about it.

TCO · January 17, 2003, 17:58

Did the Japanese invade Viet Nam and China because of past wrongs, Mitty?

They were bullies. They would have taken their shot regardless. It was a power play, Floyd. Didn't matter what we did in the 1800's. "There could be only one!"

Arrian · January 17, 2003, 17:58

Saying that Pearl Harbor wouldn't have happened if we didn't own Pearl Harbor isn't exactly brilliant insight.

-Arrian

David Floyd · January 17, 2003, 18:00

Quote:

They were bullies. They would have taken their shot regardless. It was a power play, Floyd. Didn't matter what we did in the 1800's. "There could be only one!"

Look, genius, it's simple logic. The US had bases in the Pacific because of US aggression. If you take away the aggression, you take away the bases. If you take away the bases, Japan can't attack them. Remember, the US wouldn't be on the West Coast either, so I'm not sure where you think Japan would have attacked, or why.

TCO · January 17, 2003, 18:02

Quote:

Originally posted by David Floyd

Look, genius, it's simple logic. The US had bases in the Pacific because of US aggression. If you take away the aggression, you take away the bases. If you take away the bases, Japan can't attack them. Remember, the US wouldn't be on the West Coast either, so I'm not sure where you think Japan would have attacked, or why.

This is silly. The Japanese didn't attack them to right a wrong. But to defeat a rival. They didn't attack Vietnam to right a wrong either. But because it was something to pick on.

David Floyd · January 17, 2003, 18:08

Fine, but you are missing the point. If we hadn't acted immorally originally, Japan could not have acted immorally against us.

Besides which, it was wrong for the government to restrict free trade with Japan.

David Floyd · January 17, 2003, 18:10

Oh, and in any case, it does not speak very highly of the personal morality of many people when they support and defend the atomic bombing of civilians as revenge for an attack on a purely military target that only killed a few thousand people.

DinoDoc · January 17, 2003, 18:11

Quote:

Originally posted by David Floyd
Besides which, it was wrong for the government to restrict free trade with Japan.

Why are we required to to trade with Japan?

David Floyd · January 17, 2003, 18:12

We aren't. But the US government has a moral obligation not to infringe upon the freedom of Americans (including American businesses) to trade with whomever they want.

DinoDoc · January 17, 2003, 18:14

You still haven't explained how that constitutes valid cause for war.