Hey Wally care to comment on my post?
Chumly wrote:Hey Wally care to comment on my post?
Although I'm not "Wally": no, therefore I put the related above response with the poster's name above.
Hey Walter Hinteler care to comment on my post?
Re: Was Allied bombing of Germany Jan - April 1945 a war cri
Steve 41oo wrote:Was the deliberate targeting of German civilians a crime, or just another horrific act of war?
Some of it was. Dresden comes to mind. But I don't think Bomber Harris deliberately decided to kill German civilians just for the heck of it. Without having done a lot of research on it, I think he was just callous.
Chumly wrote:Hey Walter Hinteler care to comment on my post?
Sorry Walter doesnt descend to your level. So I'll say your post was a load of crap.
Re: Was Allied bombing of Germany Jan - April 1945 a war cri
Thomas wrote:Steve 41oo wrote:Was the deliberate targeting of German civilians a crime, or just another horrific act of war?
Some of it was. Dresden comes to mind. But I don't think Bomber Harris deliberately decided to kill German civilians just for the heck of it. Without having done a lot of research on it, I think he was just callous.
Just as the Germans the British did a lot of research on mass bombing of civilian targets (i.e. how to maximise the number of casualties) and calculated that it would take 900 000 dead and over a million wounded civilians to break German morale. The deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime. Bomber Harris' insistence on continuing with his campaign of terror bombing, even though all evidence available pointed to its ineffectiveness, and his stubborn resistance against the bombing of strategic targets like oil and steel industry or transport networks, despite their greater effect on the German war effort amounts to nothing else. Bomber Harris was, just as Göring, a mass murderer who persisted in his ways even when every vestige of justification had evaporated.
Re: Was Allied bombing of Germany Jan - April 1945 a war cri
Paaskynen wrote:Just as the Germans the British did a lot of research on mass bombing of civilian targets (i.e. how to maximise the number of casualties) and calculated that it would take 900 000 dead and over a million wounded civilians to break German morale.
From
wikipedia
Quote:In 1942 he [Professor Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, British government's leading scientific adviser and Paymaster General]presented the War Cabinet with a paper advocating the area bombing of Geman cities in a strategic bombing campaign. The paper became known as the 'dehousing paper' and was based on studies of German bombing on Birmingham, Kingston upon Hull and elsewhere. It estimated the expected damage the RAF could do if it concentrated all its efforts into area bombing. His estimates of its effectiveness were opposed by Sir Henry Tizard and Professor Blackett among others. (An account of the disagreement - and some lessons to be drawn from it - can be found in C.P.Snow's book 'Science and Government'.)
The term 'War Crimes' presumably refers to violations of accepted elements of international law. The problem is that just what constitutes international law is a matter of continuing dispute. Some argue that this or that principle or interpretation of past statement by various international bodies or treaties among some nations constitutes ' international law', even in the absence of any enforcement mechanism, or indeed of widespread compliance with it. These arguments, however well-intended they may be, are pointless, given that there is no accepted source of international law other than the consent of the sovereign nations subject to it.
There is little doubt that, in the light of history, some elements of the Allied bombing campaigns against Germany and of the U.S. campaign against Japan. were excessive and went beyond what was reasonably required to secure victory in what was otherwise a reasonably just war. Indeed it is likely that, had the same standards of justice been uniformly applied to victors and vanquished alike, a number of allied and American figures would have been among those tried and convicted after the war.
What was dispensed at Nuremberg and in various trials of Japanese leaders, was victor's justice, nothing more. Despite our too frequent attempts to dress it up as some breakthrough in the morality of national affairs, it was little more than principled vengeance wreaked on the loosers by the victors, and done so with post war political goals strongly in mind.
A couple of examples tell the tale. (1) German Admiral Doenitz was tried and convicted of unrestricted submarine warfare - of sinking unarmed merchant ships indiscriminately and failing to take action to rescue survivors. The fact is that the U.S. practiced exactly the same policy with respect to Japanese shipping throughout the Pacific and with similar effect. (Admiral Nimitz even offered testimony to that effect at Nuremberg - Doenitz was convicted nevertheless.). (2) The post war evidence of Emperor Hirohito's direct involvement in the decision-making leading to WWII was clear and ample. Despite that, for excellent political reasons relating to the post war situation, Hirohito was exempted from the prosecution and Gen Tojo was hanged as a scapegoat.
I don't make any moral judgements about either action. People did what then appeared to be necessary to secure peace and security. The passage of time relentlessly exposes their errors and misjudgements. The error, in my view at least, lies chiefly in making a big moral deal out of actions we actually take out of a pragmatic concern for our perceived self-interest.
I also believe that too much is made out of the difference between the RAF's explicit program of mass night bombings of German cities and the so called "precision" daylight bombing of the USAF. The truth is that level-flight bombing, with unguided free fall bombs from heights of 5 - 6 kilometers isn't precise at all. The average miss distance from the intended target was on the order of a kilometer (this was the finding of an exhaustive post war survey done by the U.S.). Given that most of the industrial and military targets they were bombing were in or adjacent to cities, there really wasn't all that much difference between U.S, tactics and those of the British. The "precision daylight bombing" doctrine of the U.S. was more a self-induced rationalization than a moral principle. Perhaps our only moral defense was the relatively higher casualties we suffered as a result of it. Finally, late in the war against Japan we adopted - and improved on - exactly the same RAF fire-bombing tactics in our campaign against Japan.
georgeob1 wrote:
What was dispensed at Nuremberg and in various trials of Japanese leaders, was victor's justice, nothing more. Despite our too frequent attempts to dress it up as some breakthrough in the morality of national affairs, it was little more than principled vengeance wreaked on the loosers by the victors, and done so with post war political goals strongly in mind.
A couple of examples tell the tale. (1) German Admiral Doenitz was tried and convicted of unrestricted submarine warfare - of sinking unarmed merchant ships indiscriminately and failing to take action to rescue survivors. The fact is that the U.S. practiced exactly the same policy with respect to Japanese shipping throughout the Pacific and with similar effect. (Admiral Nimitz even offered testimony to that effect at Nuremberg - Doenitz was convicted nevertheless.). (2) The post war evidence of Emperor Hirohito's direct involvement in the decision-making leading to WWII was clear and ample. Despite that, for excellent political reasons relating to the post war situation, Hirohito was exempted from the prosecution and Gen Tojo was hanged as a scapegoat.
I don't make any moral judgements about either action. People did what then appeared to be necessary to secure peace and security. The passage of time relentlessly exposes their errors and misjudgements. The error, in my view at least, lies chiefly in making a big moral deal out of actions we actually take out of a pragmatic concern for our perceived self-interest.
I also believe that too much is made out of the difference between the RAF's explicit program of mass night bombings of German cities and the so called "precision" daylight bombing of the USAF. The truth is that level-flight bombing, with unguided free fall bombs from heights of 5 - 6 kilometers isn't precise at all. The average miss distance from the intended target was on the order of a kilometer (this was the finding of an exhaustive post war survey done by the U.S.). Given that most of the industrial and military targets they were bombing were in or adjacent to cities, there really wasn't all that much difference between U.S, tactics and those of the British. The "precision daylight bombing" doctrine of the U.S. was more a self-induced rationalization than a moral principle. Perhaps our only moral defense was the relatively higher casualties we suffered as a result of it. Finally, late in the war against Japan we adopted - and improved on - exactly the same RAF fire-bombing tactics in our campaign against Japan.
Just some short remarks - since I'm "working" on these subjects:
- the Nuremberg trials were at least juster than the Soviet War Crimes Trials. (For instance the [order polce] Generals Herf [Minsk] and Scheer [Kiev] were hanged for crimes which largely happened before they got their posts there..)
- some bombings "just happened" due to how it was done (like George described above; e.g. several members of my family died in our bombed house although it was five miles away from the targeted coal mines) or due to bad (aerial) reconnaissance (e.g. the station [and surrounding area] of my native town was nombed and a train full with refugees from the Ruhr hit ... because it was mistaken for a different railway junction).
All civilised nations will agree that a campaign that has as declared aim to kill as many civilians as possible is a crime. Bomber Harris spoke of any other targets than civilian population centers as "panacea targets" and was deaf and blind to the evidence that attacking those targets, i.e. base industries and transport systems had a far greater effect on the German war effort. For example, the US bombing of the Romanian oil fields did more damage to the German war machine than all the raids on Berlin put together.
georgeob1 wrote:The term 'War Crimes' presumably refers to violations of accepted elements of international law. The problem is that just what constitutes international law is a matter of continuing dispute. Some argue that this or that principle or interpretation of past statement by various international bodies or treaties among some nations constitutes ' international law', even in the absence of any enforcement mechanism, or indeed of widespread compliance with it. These arguments, however well-intended they may be, are pointless, given that there is no accepted source of international law other than the consent of the sovereign nations subject to it.
There is little doubt that, in the light of history, some elements of the Allied bombing campaigns against Germany and of the U.S. campaign against Japan. were excessive and went beyond what was reasonably required to secure victory in what was otherwise a reasonably just war. Indeed it is likely that, had the same standards of justice been uniformly applied to victors and vanquished alike, a number of allied and American figures would have been among those tried and convicted after the war.
What was dispensed at Nuremberg and in various trials of Japanese leaders, was victor's justice, nothing more. Despite our too frequent attempts to dress it up as some breakthrough in the morality of national affairs, it was little more than principled vengeance wreaked on the loosers by the victors, and done so with post war political goals strongly in mind.
A couple of examples tell the tale. (1) German Admiral Doenitz was tried and convicted of unrestricted submarine warfare - of sinking unarmed merchant ships indiscriminately and failing to take action to rescue survivors. The fact is that the U.S. practiced exactly the same policy with respect to Japanese shipping throughout the Pacific and with similar effect. (Admiral Nimitz even offered testimony to that effect at Nuremberg - Doenitz was convicted nevertheless.). (2) The post war evidence of Emperor Hirohito's direct involvement in the decision-making leading to WWII was clear and ample. Despite that, for excellent political reasons relating to the post war situation, Hirohito was exempted from the prosecution and Gen Tojo was hanged as a scapegoat.
I don't make any moral judgements about either action. People did what then appeared to be necessary to secure peace and security. The passage of time relentlessly exposes their errors and misjudgements. The error, in my view at least, lies chiefly in making a big moral deal out of actions we actually take out of a pragmatic concern for our perceived self-interest.
I also believe that too much is made out of the difference between the RAF's explicit program of mass night bombings of German cities and the so called "precision" daylight bombing of the USAF. The truth is that level-flight bombing, with unguided free fall bombs from heights of 5 - 6 kilometers isn't precise at all. The average miss distance from the intended target was on the order of a kilometer (this was the finding of an exhaustive post war survey done by the U.S.). Given that most of the industrial and military targets they were bombing were in or adjacent to cities, there really wasn't all that much difference between U.S, tactics and those of the British. The "precision daylight bombing" doctrine of the U.S. was more a self-induced rationalization than a moral principle. Perhaps our only moral defense was the relatively higher casualties we suffered as a result of it. Finally, late in the war against Japan we adopted - and improved on - exactly the same RAF fire-bombing tactics in our campaign against Japan.
I think this is an excellent post by George and it demostrates what a mess we get in when we try to apply morality to warfare. Did the nazi regime in Germany commit war crimes? Yes. Did the Allied coalition forces fighting Germany commit war crimes? Judged by the same standards...yes, of course. There is unfortunately a horrid truth in the saying "all is fair in love and war".
I believe some important points have been made and acknowledged here that readers should reflect on as they pass judgement on what is going on today in Iraq. All wars involve needless destruction and death. Even wars that are found to have ample historical justification have their elements of human weakness and venality. The existence of such things generally has little relevance to history's final judgements on the justice or the efficacy of the undertaking itself.
We live in an age that historians will say began in 1914. We are still working out the largely unanticipated side effects of actions initiated then by actors in Germany, Austria Hungary, France, Russia, England, and even Serbia, who likely had little understanding of the long-term effects of their actions, and who unleashed the dogs of unending war and revolution without even fully realizing what they had done.
Now, after a century of warfare that has touched every continent, Europe has reorganized itself to (presumably) eliminate the local factors which initiated the century long conflagration they started in 1914. The problem is that the world is still reverberating with the side effects of their previous misdeeds, and it has fallen to others to try and put the pieces back together. The, perhaps understandable, weariness of Europeans is, despite their all too common protestations to the contrary, not the same thing as virtue or right understanding, nor is it a substitute for it.
Some Canadian war veterans have the inpression, their War Museum considers them to be war criminals.
Quote:Veterans threaten war museum boycott over description of bombing campaign
Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, September 28, 2006
A national coalition of veterans groups, including the Royal Canadian Legion, is threatening to call a public boycott of the Canadian War Museum if it refuses to change a display the critics claim is accusing the country's Second World War airmen of being ''war criminals.''
The Ottawa exhibit describes the ''enduring controversy'' over the role of Canadian bombing squadrons in attacking Germany's industrial infrastructure and major cities as part of an Allied strategy to cripple the Nazi war machine.
''Mass bomber raids against Germany resulted in vast destruction and heavy loss of life,'' the debated panel reads. ''The value and morality of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany remains bitterly contested. Bomber Command's aim was to crush civilian morale and force Germany to surrender by destroying its cities and industrial installations. Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 600,000 Germans dead, and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war.''
Several textual additions were made to the exhibit after veterans first raised concerns about the display last year, soon after the new museum was opened near Parliament Hill.
But the Coalition of Veterans, after months of pressuring the museum to alter the wording of the key panel at the exhibit, issued an ultimatum on Wednesday demanding another meeting with curators about their depiction of Bomber Command.
''The text does not present the facts accurately, and the description denigrates the efforts of the almost 10,000 courageous Canadians who died during their tours of operation and all veterans who were fortunate enough to survive,'' said coalition spokesman Don Elliott, an 89-year-old Toronto-area veteran who served as a navigator in Bomber Command and spent three years as a prisoner of war after his crew was shot down in Germany in 1941.
''The panel and accompanying photos leave the public with the impression we failed to achieve our objectives, which is not accurate,'' Elliott added. ''The text stresses Allied bombing only resulted in hundreds of thousands of German deaths, millions of people left homeless and, as the panel says, 'the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war.' The implication is that Allied bomber crews were war criminals.''
Dean Oliver, the museum's director of exhibitions, told CanWest News Service that curators ''substantially altered'' the Bomber Command display in response to the veterans' initial complaints, adding contextual information and even a quote from Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, the controversial British commander of the Allied bombing campaign.
But Oliver insisted that the museum's summary of Bomber Command's motives and achievements is ''accurate'' and that its characterization of the strategy as controversial is beyond dispute.
''The controversy is 60 years old,'' he said, noting that concerns about the strategy emerged long before the CBC documentary The Valour and The Horror became a lightning rod for debate about Bomber Command in the early 1990s.
Oliver added that the museum recently decided that another meeting on the issue would be futile and that when it comes to representing historical events, it is common for ''people of good conscience to disagree.''
Re: Was Allied bombing of Germany Jan - April 1945 a war cri
Thomas wrote:Steve 41oo wrote:Was the deliberate targeting of German civilians a crime, or just another horrific act of war?
Some of it was. Dresden comes to mind. But I don't think Bomber Harris deliberately decided to kill German civilians just for the heck of it. Without having done a lot of research on it, I think he was just callous.
Sir Arthur Harris first made a name for himself attacking "Zeppelins" during the Great War. He went from triumph to triumph, leading the bombing missions against Arab and Kurd villages in Iraq in the 1920s. Harris became convinced that terror bombing was an effective weapon of war because of his experience in Iraq.
In his multi-volume history of the Second World War, Churchill himself comments that he and Harris came to the conclusion that factory workers who did not sleep would not perform productively at work the next day. Do you suggest that he and Harris were so naive as to believe that area bombing of residential neighborhoods would not result in massive civilian casualties?
No, Harris wasn't doing it "for the heck of it." Two things, however, are undeniable--that is that his past experience had lead him to comment, before a second great war was even on the horizon in Europe, that terror bombing of civilians was an effective and legitimate military policy; the second is that the RAF knew, very quickly, that they would not be able to maintain a daylight bombing campaign against Germany, and hadn't the sophisticated bomb sighting devices necessary to attempt precision bombing at night.
I'd say that Harris was not simply callous, but that he was completely bereft of any concept of regard for the lives of civilians, so long as he saw them as the "enemy." Whether they were Arabs, Kurds, or Germans, Harris considered attacking civilians a legitimate military doctrine.
I will say once again that Harris was not simply callous--with regard to bombing in "Mesopotamia," he remarked: " . . . "the only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand."
Frankly, i think he was one heartless and murderous son-of-a-bitch--which is usually the type one wishes to put in high-level positions of responsibility in war. However, in the case of Harris, both in the RAF and in the United States Army Air Force, there was a good deal of dissension against his area bombing doctrine, and it was loudly expressed at the time.
I recommend The Bombers: The RAF offensive against Germany 1939-1945, by Norman Longmate; and Decision over Schweinfurt: The U.S. 8th Air Force Battle for Daylight Bombing by Thomas Coffey.
The latter book is very revealing about what General Arnold, and General Eaker, his man on the scene, felt about daylight bombing. Harris argued strenuously that daylight precision bombing would never work, even with the highly effective Norden bomb sight, and that USAAF resources should be put under his command to expand the night-time area bombing campaign. In fact, Churchill almost succeeded in convincing Roosevelt to combine the 8th USSAF with Bomber Command, pointing out that they weren't bombing Germany, and were not being used effectively.
Arnold used all the influence he had with George Marshall, and the Army (there was not then an independent Air Force) resisted that move. The first major 8th USAAF operation over German territory was the Schweifurt Raid. Schweinfurt in Franconia was the center of the production of ball- and roller-bearings in Germany (roughly half of all German production), which meant it was crucial to just about every war industry above the level of light infantry weapons. The raid was initially taken as a disaster, because casualties were so heavy. One of the commanders who flew his bomber in the raid, Curtis LeMay, was appalled at the effects of the three hundred sorties which German fighters flew against them. Nevertheless, LeMay was convinced that the doctrine could be made to work, and later commanded the USAAF attacks on Japan which eventually fire-bombed more than 60 Japanese cities--ironically, we were willing to use area bombing and attacks on civilians against the Japanese.
But the Germans were appalled, as well. Albert Speer was then responsible for the economic production of the Reich, and he commented that he was personally devastated by the destruction he saw at Schweinfurt, and estimated that Germany has lost at least half of their ball- and roller-bearing output for three months. (Machine tools are extremely sensitive--you don't have to actually hit a machine tool to put it out of commission: an explosion nearby can ruin the machine, and the water from fire-fighting systems damaged many more.) The effects of that single raid were chilling for the Germans. The next time the Americans went after Schweinfurt, the Luftwaffe fighter command sent up 800 sorties to attempt to stop.
The USAAF had several problems with the first Schweinfurt/Regensburg raid (they had also attacked the Messerschmidt factory in Austria--always a favorite target of bomber crews). The first was that they had no real experience at analyzing aerial photography to determine how effective their mission had been (in fact, they had put almost 30% of bombs within 1000 yards of ground zero, when Army Air Force doctrine only called for 10%)--and they grossly underestimated how effective it had been. Another was a simple military principle which they violated, which has nothing specific to do with air forces. There were nearly 400 bombers, organized in three divisions. The weather was clear over Germany, but not over England. Eventually, the three divisions into which the mission had been divided took off at different times, and Curtis LeMay's "box formations" (designed to allow the heavily armed B17s and B24s to more effectively protect each other) were far less effective because they crossed German air space separately--one division, the one headed for Regensburg, escaped German fighters almost entirely--they lost just two planes out of 140. The other two came in, heading for Franconia, separately, and German fighters were able to land and refuel and rearm before taking off to hit the Americans again. A simple and crucial lack of coordination had doomed many bomber crews. The final problem was the the most effective method of protecting the bombers, fighter escorts, were unavailable after they crossed the German border. The P47 Thunderbolts (the nearest thing to an indestructible fighter in that war) had to turn back at Aachen, and the Spitfires couldn't even go that far.
The doctrine of Arnold was eventually justified, especially after the war when the USAAF was able to see the destruction from the German point of view. Speer wrote: "The strategic bombing of Germany was the greatest lost battle of the whole war for Germany." The effects were a great deal more far reaching than Harris' area bombing of residential neighborhoods. The lack of ball- and roller-bearings interfered with the manufacture of tanks, machine guns, air craft, submarines--even tractors for farmers and rolling stock for the railways. The (justifiably) panicked reaction of Hitler and Speer meant that the Russian front was virtually stripped of Luftwaffe resources in order to meet the threat of daylight bombing over Germany. (Ironically, the American perception of having been "whipped" over Schweinfurt lead them to ground the bombers for six weeks there after.)
Finally, the marriage of the P51 Mustang by North American with the Merlin fuel-injected engine by Rolls Royce created the fighter which would tip the scales for the air war over Germany. Chuck Yeager (a name which will be familiar to Americans) once commented that what the Spitfire could do for 40 minutes the Mustang could do for 8 hours. Adolf Galland, who commanded the Luftwaffe fighter wing at the end of the war, tells in his war memoir how Mustangs would escort the bombers back to Aachen, and then hunt the German fighters back to their airfields--when Galland finally was able to launch jets against the Allies, they were flying from logging roads in forests in Germany. The Mustangs shot up the entire transportation system in Germany--canals, railways, roads. Even what German production could produce couldn't be delivered where it was needed. Goering was asked when he knew the war was lost--he said: "When i saw the first Mustang over Berlin."
The doctrine and the vision of General Henry "Hap" Arnold--daylight precision bombing--was vindicated by the efforts of the 8th United States Army Air Force over France and Germany. Harris apparently considered the Germans as little better than a handful of ignorant Arabs, who would only understand "the heavy hand."
You have a more optimistic concept of the accuracy of level free fall bombing from high altitudes than I do. My recollection of the findings of the Strategic Bombing survey of the European campaign is that the average miss distance was over 1000M. In Vietnam even using steep (60deg) dives, low release altitudes, and with improved gunsights we rarely did better than 40M average miss distance - and often worse when missiles and AAA were visible.
The British night bombing had some effect as well. I think it would be very hard to demonstrate a decisive difference between it and our daylight bombing in overall effectiveness. -- except perhaps for the destruction of the petroleum refining capacity in Romania.
The revolution that came first with laser guided bombs and now with even more accurate variations of GPS has changed all that significantly.
I don't argue with your analysis of Harris, or even Arnold's resistance to being put under British command. However I also believe that the common military prickliness about independent national command and autonomy for the then very ambitious US Air Force was as much or likely more a motivator than concern for German civilians.
Re: How could it not be a war crime?
giordansmith wrote:The mass murder of civilians by means of aerial bombardment would seem to be about the most terrible thing that one group of people could do to another. How could it not be a war crime?
Technically, aerial bombing of civilian populations was not a war crime during WWII in the sense that it had not been forbidden under the Geneva conventions, which were established in the 1920s, before it was really appreciated how awful aerial bombardment could be. As a result, during World War II comparatively trivial violations of the Geneva conventions were regarded (by all sides) as war crimes, but not aerial bombardment. Yet can anyone tell me with a straight face that, to say, manacle POWs is a war crime but that to incinerate thousands of innocent civilians isn't?
A second point: the deliberately targeting of civilian populations has
officially been a war crime since 1977. Should we regard it as a war crime after 1977 but not before that date, simply because a piece of paper got signed in 1977? The result of taking this view is moral absurdity.
Giordan Smith
http://AUTO SPAM FILTERblogspot.com/
What you are forgetting is that the Geneva Conventions were not the sum total of the laws of war. They (along with the Hague Conventions) were a *partial* codification of the customs of war that had evolved over the preceding centuries.
Those customs (essentially an international version of common law) hold legal force despite the lack of codification. And a violation of those customs of warfare is indeed a war crime.
@Walter Hinteler,
yes we should remember...the insanity of war.
to respond to the original question, and I might already have done so, yes it was imho.
I've been to Dresden the first time this week.
I could imagine that everyone visiting the city with open eyes (and ears) will get an opinion .... similar to Steve's above.
