Discussion and Debate Community Thread

[enoch]

Trump being banned for 2 years from IG and FB is amusing.

[Cyclops]

...

If they put him away, his smiling face will surely be missed:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If he doesn't go to gaol he can do community service as a chimney sweep, or in a David Lynch film.

...
Just what the video's message is.

My feeling is the Nuremberg trials were a farce. The Nazis were vile scum who broke all kinds of international laws covered by the Geneva and Hague conventions but we decided to invent "Crimes against Humanity" as a new law, and try Nazis for it after it was invented. Only Nazis were tried, and it was victor's justice.

Its not hard to see why we went for a special law instead of the existing apparatus. Australian forces enjoy a reputation for shooting prisoners (as does the US to a lesser extent). The UK engaged in bombing campaigns that indiscriminately killed civilians (as did the US especially in Japan). The Soviets could've ticked most lot of the boxes on the Geneva convention.

It was a sick stunt, and even though it delivered the right outcome the process was deeply flawed.

[swabian]

That's exactly right, it had the right outcome. Those were post-war circumstances, everything was very much in disorder still and the US public needed a display of orderly justice, and it was also important to have an effect on the German population, and quickly. Everyone would have hammered out death penalties against them, I think the US did a comparatively reasonable job. My feeling is that it was certainly sub par standard, but it was a great deal under the circumstances that there were lengthy and somewhat public trials at all. It's not all bad what the yanks came up with in those days of patchwork civilization.

[Sir Adrian]

If he doesn't go to gaol he can do community service as a chimney sweep, or in a David Lynch film.


My feeling is the Nuremberg trials were a farce. The Nazis were vile scum who broke all kinds of international laws covered by the Geneva and Hague conventions but we decided to invent "Crimes against Humanity" as a new law, and try Nazis for it after it was invented. Only Nazis were tried, and it was victor's justice.

Its not hard to see why we went for a special law instead of the existing apparatus. Australian forces enjoy a reputation for shooting prisoners (as does the US to a lesser extent). The UK engaged in bombing campaigns that indiscriminately killed civilians (as did the US especially in Japan). The Soviets could've ticked most lot of the boxes on the Geneva convention.

It was a sick stunt, and even though it delivered the right outcome the process was deeply flawed.

That's because the Allies and especially the soviets also broke most of the same laws (or all the laws in the case of the soviets). The nazis could not be tried for war crimes because the allies and soviets also did that. They couldn't be tried for building camps because the Americans and Russians also did that. So they were tried for the one thing the others did not do, the holocaust. They weren't tried for the wider crime of genocide because soviets also did that and were still doing it at the time of trial, so new terminology of crimes against humanity.

[Cope]

Given the breadth of the war, the threat it posed to civilization and the historic atrocities committed by the Axis and Japanese, framing the western Allies as hypocritical is contemptible, revisionist nonsense. Not even the USSR was guilty of anything remotely comparable to the industrialized murder of ~10m people for no strategic purpose whatsoever.

[Sir Adrian]

Yeah, you're right. The Soviet union managed 25 million in half the time. We should not compare the soviet efficiency at mass slaughter to anyone else.

As for allied hypocrisy, it's actually factual. Most of the accused at Nurnberg got off on tu quoque claims simply because the allies had done much worse than them. For example Donitz and Raeder were let off the hook for unrestricted submarine warfare (and sinking civilian ships) because the British had also targeted civilian and red cross ships or generally broke the rules of naval warfare in every single year of the war (including the famed sinking of the surrendered french navy). If Donitz and Raeder were to hang, the lord high admiral was also supposed to hang so they just ignored Donitz and Raeder's crimes.

And let's not even go into what the soviets got away with. Many german state officials were convicted (rightfully) for the invasion of Poland yet the soviet officials who had orchestrated the invasions of Poland, the Baltics, Finland and Romania in 1939-1940 were let go without any charge. What's even more beautiful is that the soviet judge was none other than Iona Nikitchenko, the chief architect of the show trials during the great purges and one of the masterminds behind the post-war genocideal campaigns conducted in the newly anexed territories. He's the guy who found the entire Polish and Germany population of Chernobyl guilty of anti-soviet thinking and had them deported to gulags in Khazakhstan and also deported the entire jewish population of Chernobyl to wasting camps in Vorkuta and Magadan. The guy who ethnically cleansed jews was in charge of judging people for killing jews.

The american chief prosecutor wrote to Truman saying Nuremberg was a hypocritical farce, but hey i guess that's "revisionist nonsense" as well.

[Cope]

Yeah, you're right. The Soviet union managed 25 million in half the time. We should not compare the soviet efficiency at mass slaughter to anyone else.

As for allied hypocrisy, it's actually factual. Most of the accused at Nurnberg got off on tu quoque claims simply because the allies had done much worse than them. For example Donitz and Raeder were let off the hook for unrestricted submarine warfare (and sinking civilian ships) because the British had also targeted civilian and red cross ships or generally broke the rules of naval warfare in every single year of the war (including the famed sinking of the surrendered french navy). If Donitz and Raeder were to hang, the lord high admiral was also supposed to hang so they just ignored Donitz and Raeder's crimes.

The western powers refusing to punish Axis commanders for mirroring the practices of Allied commanders would be the opposite of hypocritical.

And let's not even go into what the soviets got away with. Many german state officials were convicted (rightfully) for the invasion of Poland yet the soviet officials who had orchestrated the invasions of Poland, the Baltics, Finland and Romania in 1939-1940 were let go without any charge. What's even more beautiful is that the soviet judge was none other than Iona Nikitchenko, the chief architect of the show trials during the great purges and one of the masterminds behind the post-war genocideal campaigns conducted in the newly anexed territories. He's the guy who found the entire Polish and Germany population of Chernobyl guilty of anti-soviet thinking and had them deported to gulags in Khazakhstan and also deported the entire jewish population of Chernobyl to wasting camps in Vorkuta and Magadan. The guy who ethnically cleansed jews was in charge of judging people for killing jews.

The american chief prosecutor wrote to Truman saying Nuremberg was a hypocritical farce, but hey i guess that's "revisionist nonsense" as well.

It was claimed that framing the western Allies as hypocritical in the context of Axis humanitarian crimes was contemptible. The USSR was excluded from this statement precisely because of the atrocities it perpetrated. It should go without saying that the western powers were in no position to hold Soviet leaders to account in 1945. It would be ridiculous to argue that those who could be brought to justice (i.e. Nazi leaders) ought to have evaded prosecution because the communist villains were beyond reach.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Given the breadth of the war, the threat it posed to civilization and the historic atrocities committed by the Axis and Japanese, framing the western Allies as hypocritical is contemptible, revisionist nonsense. Not even the USSR was guilty of anything remotely comparable to the industrialized murder of ~10m people for no strategic purpose whatsoever.

Lets check this outside the usual anglo-american nationalistic 50/60's propaganda bubble.

One of the Nuremberg principles:

Principle VI:

(b) War crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremb...Allied_nations

War Crimes of the UK:

We have Anglo-soviet invasion of Iran in 1941.

On 21 April 1945, British soldiers randomly selected and burned two cottages in Seedorf, Germany, in reprisal against local civilians who had hidden German soldiers in their cellars.[75]


Rapes:

Rape also occurred once British forces had entered Germany.[79] Many rapes involved alcohol, but there were also instances of premeditated attacks.[76] For example, on a single day in April 1945, three women in Neustadt am Rübenberge were raped.[79] In the village of Oyle, near Nienburg, two soldiers attempted to coerce two girls into a nearby wood. When they refused, one was grabbed and dragged into the woods. When she began to scream, in according to Longden, "one of the soldiers pulled a gun to silence her. Whether intentionally or in error the gun went off hitting her in the throat and killing her."[76]

Shootings of shipwreck survivors

In July 1941, the submarine HMS Torbay, under Lieutenant Commander Anthony Miers, was based in the Mediterranean where it sank several German ships. On two occasions, once off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, and the other off the coast of Crete, the crew fired upon shipwrecked German sailors and troops. Miers made no attempt to hide his actions, and reported them in his official logs. He received a strongly worded reprimand from his superiors following the first incident. Mier's actions violated the Hague Convention of 1907, which banned the killing of shipwreck survivors under any circumstances.[88][89]


Unrestricted submarine warfare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britis...s#World_War_II

Controversial as not codified as war crime but the Bomber Command Concept of planned Fire storms(which became greater and greater by consuming all oxygen) killed 100000s of women, old, children by suffocation (lack of oxygen) in air defence shelters and cellars.

New methods were introduced to create "firestorms". The most destructive raids in terms of casualties were those on Hamburg (45,000 dead) in 1943 and Dresden (25,000–35,000 dead)[24][25]) in 1945. Each caused a firestorm and left tens of thousands dead. Other large raids on German cities which resulted in high civil casualties were Darmstadt (12,300 dead), Pforzheim (17,600 dead)[26] and Kassel (10,000 dead).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command

US (war crimes in Europe):

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

See also: United States war crimes § World War II


Photo showing execution of Waffen-SS troops in a coal yard in the area of the Dachau concentration camp during its liberation. 29 April 1945 (US Army photograph)^{[note 1]}

• Laconia incident: US aircraft attacking Germans rescuing the sinking British troopship in the Atlantic Ocean. For example, the pilots of a United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) B-24 Liberator bomber, despite knowing the U-boat's location, intentions, and the presence of British seamen, killed dozens of Laconia 's survivors with bombs and strafing attacks, forcing U-156 to cast their remaining survivors into the sea and crash dive to avoid being destroyed.
• Unrestricted submarine warfare. Fleet Admiral Nimitz, the wartime commander-in-chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, provided unapologetic written testimony on Karl Dönitz's behalf at his trial that the U.S. Navy had waged unrestricted submarine warfare in the Pacific from the very first day the U.S. entered the war.
• Canicattì massacre: killing of Italian civilians by Lieutenant Colonel McCaffrey. A confidential inquiry was made, but McCaffrey was never charged with an offense relating to the incident. He died in 1954. This incident remained virtually unknown until Joseph S. Salemi of New York University, whose father witnessed it, publicized it.^[47][48]
• In the Biscari massacre, which consists of two instances of mass murders, US troops of the 45th Infantry Division killed roughly 75 prisoners of war, mostly Italian.^[49][50]
• Near the French village of Audouville-la-Hubert, 30 German Wehrmacht prisoners (probably German Army soldiers) were killed by U.S. paratroopers.^[2]
• In the aftermath of the Malmedy massacre, a written order from the HQ of the 328th US Army Infantry Regiment, dated 21 December 1944, stated: No SS troops or paratroopers will be taken prisoner but will be shot on sight.^[51] Major-General Raymond Hufft (US Army) gave instructions to his troops not to take prisoners when they crossed the Rhine in 1945. "After the war, when he reflected on the war crimes he authorized, he admitted, 'if the Germans had won, I would have been on trial at Nuremberg instead of them.'"^[52] Stephen Ambrose related: "I've interviewed well over 1000 combat veterans. Only one of them said he shot a prisoner ... Perhaps as many as one-third of the veterans ... however, related incidents in which they saw other GIs shooting unarmed German prisoners who had their hands up."^[53]
• Chenogne massacre: On 1 January 1945, members of the 11th Armored Division executed 80 Wehrmacht soldiers.^[54]
• Jungholzhausen massacre: On 15 April 1945, the 254th Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division executed between 13 and 30 Waffen SS and Wehrmacht prisoners of war.^[55]
• Treseburg massacre: On 19 April 1945, the 18th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division captured and murdered 9 unarmed Hitler Youths near the village of Treseburg.^[56]
• Lippach massacre: On 22 April 1945 American soldiers from the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division killed 24 Waffen SS soldiers who had been taken prisoners of war in the German town of Lippach. Members of the same unit are also alleged to have raped 20 women in the town.^[57]
• The Dachau liberation reprisals: Upon the liberation of Dachau concentration camp on 29 April 1945, about a dozen guards in the camp were shot by a machine gunner who was guarding them. Other soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, of the US 45th (Thunderbird) Division killed other guards who resisted. In all, about 30 were killed, according to the commanding officer Felix L. Sparks.^[58][59] Later, Colonel Howard Buechner wrote that more than 500 were killed.^[60][61]
• Operation Teardrop: Eight of the surviving, captured crewmen from the sunken German submarine U-546 were tortured by US military personnel. Historian Philip K. Lundeberg has written that the beating and torture of U-546's survivors was a singular atrocity motivated by the interrogators' desire to quickly get information on what the U.S. believed were potential cruise missile or ballistic missile attacks on the continental US by German submarines.^[62][63]
• Historian Peter Lieb has found that many U.S. and Canadian units were ordered not to take enemy prisoners during the D-Day landings in Normandy. If this view is correct, it may explain the fate of 64 German prisoners (out of the 130 captured) who did not make it to the POW collecting point on Omaha Beach on the day of the landings.^[1]

War rape

Secret wartime files made public only in 2006 reveal that American GIs committed more than 400 sexual offenses in Europe, including 126 rapes in England, between 1942 and 1945.^[64] A study by Robert J. Lilly estimates that a total of 14,000 civilian women in England, France and Germany were raped by American GIs during World War II.^[65][66] It is estimated that there were around 3,500 rapes by American servicemen in France between June 1944 and the end of the war and one historian has claimed that sexual violence against women in liberated France was common.^[67]
In Taken by Force, J. Robert Lilly estimates the number of rapes committed by U.S. servicemen in Germany to be 11,040.^[68] As in the case of the American occupation of France after the D-Day invasion, many of the American rapes in Germany in 1945 were gang rapes committed by armed soldiers at gunpoint.^[69]
Although non-fraternization policies were instituted for the Americans in Germany, the phrase "copulation without conversation is not fraternization" was used as a motto by United States Army troops.^[70] The journalist Osmar White, a war correspondent from Australia who served with the American troops during the war, wrote that

After the fighting moved on to German soil, there was a good deal of rape by combat troops and those immediately following them. The incidence varied between unit and unit according to the attitude of the commanding officer. In some cases offenders were identified, tried by court martial, and punished. The army legal branch was reticent, but admitted that for brutal or perverted sexual offences against German women, some soldiers had been shot – particularly if they happened to be Negroes. Yet I know for a fact that many women were raped by white Americans. No action was taken against the culprits. In one sector a report went round that a certain very distinguished army commander made the wisecrack, 'Copulation without conversation does not constitute fraternisation.'^[71]

A typical victimization with sexual assault by drunken American personnel marching through occupied territory involved threatening a German family with weapons, forcing one or more women to engage in sex, and putting the entire family out on the street afterward.^[70]
As in the eastern sector of the occupation, the number of rapes peaked in 1945, but a high rate of violence against the German and Austrian populations by the Americans lasted at least into the first half of 1946, with five cases of dead German women found in American barracks in May and June 1946 alone.^[69]
Carol Huntington writes that the American soldiers who raped German women and then left gifts of food for them may have permitted themselves to view the act as a prostitution rather than rape. Citing the work of a Japanese historian alongside this suggestion, Huntington writes that Japanese women who begged for food "were raped and soldiers sometimes left food for those they raped."^[69]
The black soldiers of America's segregated occupation force were both more likely to be charged with rape and severely punished.^[69] Heide Fehrenbach writes that, while the American black soldiers were in fact by no means free from indiscipline,

The point, rather, is that American officials exhibited an explicit interest in a soldier's race, and then only if he were black, when reporting behavior they feared would undermine either the status or the political aims of the U.S. Military Government in Germany.^[72]

In 2015, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that German historian Miriam Gebhardt "believes that members of the US military raped as many as 190,000 German women by the time West Germany regained sovereignty in 1955, with most of the assaults taking place in the months immediately following the US invasion of Nazi Germany. The author bases her claims in large part on reports kept by Bavarian priests in the summer of 1945."^[73]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied...#United_States

Those war crimes are not even remotely on the same level as the Holocaust committed by SS and partial Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS.

But it was hypocritical to sentence only the losers because of conventional war crimes and not punishing a single western allied soldier for committing the same atrocities.

More worse those crimes were covered up:

Harland-Dunaway refers to General George S. Patton's diary in which the latter confirms that the Americans "...also murdered 50 odd German med [sic]. I hope we can conceal this".[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenogne_massacre

[Sir Adrian]

The western powers refusing to punish Axis commanders for mirroring the practices of Allied commanders would be the opposite of hypocritical.

Yes, on planet Omicron Perseii VIII perhaps. The purpose of the Nuremberg tribunal was to punish warcrimes. ALL warcrimes. The allies ignoring German warcrimes so as to avoid prosecuting thier own for simmilar or worse is the definition of being hypocritical. You seek to punish war crimes and you let war criminals walk.

It was claimed that framing the western Allies as hypocritical in the context of Axis humanitarian crimes was contemptible. The USSR was excluded from this statement precisely because of the atrocities it perpetrated. It should go without saying that the western powers were in no position to hold Soviet leaders to account in 1945. It would be ridiculous to argue that those who could be brought to justice (i.e. Nazi leaders) ought to have evaded prosecution because the communist villains were beyond reach.

Even if you exclude the soviets the amount of dirt on the allied side is still sufficient to make a small mountain. Goring was rightfully accused of ordering a bombing campaign on civilian targets yet the tribunal completely ignored that the first person to give such an order was Churchill himself, and Goring was only reciprocating. The Japanese weren't even bombing any allied civilian targets yet the western allies fire bombed several cities with the intention of killing civilians. How many of the people responsible were tried for war-crimes? None.

[enoch]

Yes, on planet Omicron Perseii VIII perhaps. The purpose of the Nuremberg tribunal was to punish warcrimes. ALL warcrimes. The allies ignoring German warcrimes so as to avoid prosecuting thier own for simmilar or worse is the definition of being hypocritical. You seek to punish war crimes and you let war criminals walk.





Even if you exclude the soviets the amount of dirt on the allied side is still sufficient to make a small mountain. Goring was rightfully accused of ordering a bombing campaign on civilian targets yet the tribunal completely ignored that the first person to give such an order was Churchill himself, and Goring was only reciprocating. The Japanese weren't even bombing any allied civilian targets yet the western allies fire bombed several cities with the intention of killing civilians. How many of the people responsible were tried for war-crimes? None.

The purpose of the NT was to find scapegoats on the losing side, appeasing the allied populace and quickly get to rebuilding Europe. Get that Postwar boom going. No state level org has ever cared about punishing war crimes. War is a crime.

[PointOfViewGun]

Some of these arguments about Nuremberg Trials is mindboggling to read...

[Cope]

Yes, on planet Omicron Perseii VIII perhaps. The purpose of the Nuremberg tribunal was to punish warcrimes. ALL warcrimes. The allies ignoring German warcrimes so as to avoid prosecuting thier own for simmilar or worse is the definition of being hypocritical. You seek to punish war crimes and you let war criminals walk.

It would have been hypocritical for the western powers to punish Axis commanders for practices Allied military commanders engaged in. The Tribunal's refusal to sentence Dönitz for breaching the laws of submarine warfare, expressly because of comparable Allied breaches, is the opposite of hypocritical.

Even if you exclude the soviets the amount of dirt on the allied side is still sufficient to make a small mountain. Goring was rightfully accused of ordering a bombing campaign on civilian targets yet the tribunal completely ignored that the first person to give such an order was Churchill himself, and Goring was only reciprocating. The Japanese weren't even bombing any allied civilian targets yet the western allies fire bombed several cities with the intention of killing civilians. How many of the people responsible were tried for war-crimes? None.

Setting aside that the German bombing of Polish cities and, most famously, of Rotterdam, predated any major Allied strategic bombing campaign, the Tribunal's judgement against Goering made no mention of Luftwaffe attacks against civilian targets.

[Vanoi]

Even if you exclude the soviets the amount of dirt on the allied side is still sufficient to make a small mountain. Goring was rightfully accused of ordering a bombing campaign on civilian targets yet the tribunal completely ignored that the first person to give such an order was Churchill himself, and Goring was only reciprocating. The Japanese weren't even bombing any allied civilian targets yet the western allies fire bombed several cities with the intention of killing civilians. How many of the people responsible were tried for war-crimes? None.

Japan bombed numerous Chinese cities killing upwards to 200,000 civilians.

No one was tried for bombing civilian targets due to the vague international law regarding it. Before the introduction of the Fourth Geneva Convention bombing civilian targets could be easily justified. The Hague Conventions were the only relevant law around at the time and they were horrible and did not actually make it illegal to bomb civilians.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

It would have been hypocritical for the western powers to punish Axis commanders for practices Allied military commanders engaged in. The Tribunal's refusal to sentence Dönitz for breaching the laws of submarine warfare, expressly because of comparable Allied breaches, is the opposite of hypocritical.

Not true.

Dönitz was found guilty from the Tribunal:

"As stated by the judges: "Dönitz is charged with waging unrestricted submarine warfare contrary to the Naval Protocol of 1936 to which Germany acceded, and which reaffirmed the rules of submarine warfare laid down in the London Naval Agreement of 1930 ... The order of Dönitz to sink neutral ships without warning when found within these zones was, therefore, in the opinion of the Tribunal, violation of the Protocol ... The orders, then, prove Dönitz is guilty of a violation of the Protocol ... The sentence of Dönitz is not assessed on the ground of his breaches of the international law of submarine warfare."^[207]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_D..._crimes_trials

He was found guilty, but not punished because of similar conduct of British Admirality and Admiral Nimitz in the Pacific without disclosing this breaches.

Its hypocritical.

[Cope]

Nothing I wrote was untrue. It would have been hypocritical for the western powers to have punished Dönitz for unrestricted submarine warfare but not some their own commanders. The tribunal choosing not to hold Dönitz to a different standard was the opposite of hypocrisy.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

He was declared guilty, gulity means guilty of this crime.

Nothing else matters.

[Cope]

He was declared guilty, gulity means guilty of this crime.

Nothing else matters.

No one has stated that the Tribunal found Dönitz not guilty of engaging in unrestricted submarine warfare. In post #6012 it was claimed that the Tribunal refused to sentence Dönitz for breaching naval warfare laws, meaning that they were unwilling to punish him for this offense.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

And the german admiral was the only one charged because of unrestricted submarine warfare and found guilty.

No british or american admiral.

As Sir Adrian said: hypocritical.

[Coughdrop addict]

Some of these arguments about Nuremberg Trials is mindboggling to read...

Indeed. Usually the only places you see these arguments also include lots of talk about how the worldwide Jewish conspiracy wants to exterminate the Aryan race.

[Cope]

And the german admiral was the only one charged because of unrestricted submarine warfare and found guilty.

No british or american admiral.

As Setra said hypocritical.

Adrian posited that the Tribunal's refusal to punish Dönitz for breaching the laws of submarine warfare was itself hypocritical when the reverse was true.

Secondly, the Nuremberg charter provided for "the prosecution and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis". The absence of suspected "major war criminals" in/under Allied command explains the absence of hypocrisy in the decision not to launch Nuremberg type proceedings to try Allied leaders.