Discussion and Debate Community Thread

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Wow so true. Not many people believe POW camps are the same as the death camps of the Holocaust. Total hypocrisy!

Strawman. I never equated POW with Death Camps.

If i quote myself:

I'm fully aware of the war crimes of Germany in WW II and the Allied War Crimes didn't minimize or excuse them one yota.

But the Rheinwiesencamps weren't treated as POW:

Prisoners held in the camps were designated disarmed enemy forces, not prisoners of war. This decision was made in March 1945 by SHAEF commander in chief Dwight D. Eisenhower: by not classifying the hundreds of thousands of captured troops as POWs, the logistical problems associated with accommodating so many prisoners of war mandated by the Geneva Convention governing their treatment were negated.

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

The same legal trick was used in Guantanamo later again. Remember?

The Soviet rape of ~2 million German women and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Germans in Soviet prison camps was understandable; after all the Soviets were the real heroes of the war. That’s way cooler than a measly few thousand at the hands of US soldiers.

True, but Wehrmacht killed 7 million civillians in Sovietunion. I can understand the hate of some Russians.

How many civilians were killed in the US?

But on the other hand Soviet Officers executed at many times soviet soldiers, which raped.

American Officers looked away. Except the soldiers were black.

[razerbelkin]

Even Patton said:

If what we are doing [to the Germans] is"'Liberty, then give me death". I can't see how Americans can sink so low.

I dont give the full quote for obvious reasons.

[Lord Thesaurian]

True, but Wehrmacht killed 7 million civillians in Sovietunion. I can understand the hate of some Russians.

How many civilians were killed in the US?

I know right? How could anyone hate Nazis unless directly invaded by them? Boggles the mind. Completely unfair.

But on the other hand Soviet Officers executed at many times soviet soldiers, which raped.

American Officers looked away. Except the soldiers were black.

True. What’s most important in any rape case is that the rapists have equal opportunity to rape. Soviet officers at least shot all rapists on sight, which is why only a couple million took place as opposed to the several thousand the Americans allowed to happen. Makes total sense.

Even Patton said: I dont give the full quote for obvious reasons.

I’m shocked more than one German is still sore about losing WW2 to the wrong side. This is delicious.

[irontaino]

But Saudi-Arabia has paid billions by buying US arms, so they got the "You are released from prison" card.

Yep, the US blocks victims from suing Saudi Arabia, but is more than happy to steal food from Afghan mouths.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Yep, the US blocks victims from suing Saudi Arabia, but is more than happy to steal food from Afghan mouths.

Right, because using billions of dollars for checks notes humanitarian aid instead of giving it to the Taliban is why Afghans are having a hard time. Since the Taliban argues it all belongs to them I suppose the right thing to do would be to concede their argument, recognize them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, then seize all those assets for ourselves as compensation for the Taliban’s ongoing sponsorship and alliance with the terror organizations that got them invaded in the first place.

[razerbelkin]

Well, the afghans are suffering from poverty and hunger, and the US is posing sanctions on them. I heard they even sell their children...

International aid organisations and experts say the US-led sanctions on the Taliban government are hurting the Afghan people, and called for “explicit humanitarian exemptions” for the delivery of aid to prevent a “catastrophe”.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/...itarian-crisis

And here is an article I found in the hurry about selling the children:
https://www.voanews.com/a/parents-se...n/6376757.html

I am very critical at american "attempts to liberate" someone... Lybia was once a happy place under Ghadaffi, Iraq was miles away from the mess it is today, aswell and I could make this a long list but you get my point. There are no "just wars", and there never were.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

That’s way cooler than a measly few thousand at the hands of US soldiers.

which is why only a couple million took place as opposed to the several thousand the Americans allowed to happen.

So it less a war crime because it were only a few thousand?

But the few could also be up to 190000:

In 2015, the 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."<sup>[76]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_d...ion_of_Germany</sup>

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Michael Merxmüller, a priest in the village of Ramsau near Berchtesgaden, wrote on July 20, 1945, for example: "Eight girls and women raped, some of them in front of their parents."

Father Andreas Weingand, from Haag an der Amper, a tiny village located just north of where the Munich airport is today, wrote on July 25, 1945: "The saddest event during the advance were three rapes, one on a married woman, one on a single woman and one on a spotless girl of 16-and-a-half. They were committed by heavily drunken Americans."


Father Alois Schiml from Moosburg wrote on Aug. 1, 1945: "By order of the military government, a list of all residents and their ages must be nailed to the door of each house. The results of this decree are not difficult to imagine. ... Seventeen girls or women ... were brought to the hospital, having been sexually abused once or several times."
The youngest victim mentioned in the reports is a seven-year-old child. The oldest, a woman of 69.

https://www.spiegel.de/international...a-1021298.html

Even if it are "only" 11.000 rapes its not less disgusting than any other rape.

as opposed to the several thousand the Americans allowed to happen.

Yes, american officers looked away except it were black soldiers:

Carol Huntington wrote 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 prostitution rather than rape. Citing the work of a Japanese historian alongside that suggestion, Huntington writes that Japanese women who begged for food "were raped and soldiers sometimes left food for those they raped."^[72]

White American soldiers in Germany were responsible for mass rapes, but the black soldiers of America's segregated occupation force were both more likely to be charged with rape and severely punished.^[72] 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.^[75]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_d...ny#U.S._troops

And what is even worse:

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.[72]

https://books.google.de/books?id=Sjs...gC&redir_esc=y

So "BUT BUT Soviets did it too" is no excuse.

[mishkin]

Lybia was once a happy place under Ghadaffi,

No. He was a dictator oppressing much of Libya (obviously).

There are no "just wars", and there never were.

Your opinion on WW2? Should Hitler have been allowed to occupy all of Europe and the Mediterranean?

[Heathen Hammer]

Given how Libya is now a failed state, they were better off under Qaddaffi. So was Iraq under Saddam, unless you are a supporter of Iranian government, that is.

Your opinion on WW2? Should Hitler have been allowed to occupy all of Europe and the Mediterranean?

WW2 became inevitable in some shape or form due to Soviet threat and Versailles treaty. Prescot Bush bankrolling a certain German socialist building up his military-industrial complex played a role as well. Bankers benefit from wars and tend to provoke more of them.

[Sir Adrian]

Your opinion on WW2? Should Hitler have been allowed to occupy all of Europe and the Mediterranean?

That war was started by Hitler though, for unjust reasons. And it did lead to 40 years of Russian rape of half the continent.

[mishkin]

my point: fighting nazism, fascism and any other dictatorship (ussr, n. korea...) is always a "just war". (if your intention is actually fighting them and nit replacing them eith sone other ###)

[Lord Thesaurian]

Even if it are "only" 11.000 rapes its not less disgusting than any other rape.

So "BUT BUT Soviets did it too" is no excuse.

Too right. The US was too complacent with rookie numbers. Were it not for our entitled sense of exceptionalism, we might have worked harder at it and matched the heroic Soviets at a couple million.

I am very critical at american "attempts to liberate" someone...

If only the Kaiser were around to do the liberating. Shame.

[Heathen Hammer]

my point: fighting nazism, fascism and any other dictatorship (ussr, n. korea...) is always a "just war". (if your intention is actually fighting them and nit replacing them eith sone other ###)

"Its a just war when its the good guys who are doing it!"
I'm pretty sure every historical baddie in history considered him/herself the "good guy", be it Hitler, Attila, Lenin, George W. Bush or Tamerlan.

[mishkin]

"Its a just war when its the good guys who are doing it!"
I'm pretty sure every historical baddie in history considered him/herself the "good guy", be it Hitler, Attila, Lenin, George W. Bush or Tamerlan.

you have a doubt who were the good guys and the bad guys during ww2? on what side would you have been? Switzerland?

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Too right. The US was too complacent with rookie numbers. Were it not for our entitled sense of exceptionalism, we might have worked harder at it and matched the heroic Soviets at a couple million.

If only the Kaiser were around to do the liberating. Shame.

Your argument is also still basically, the 11.000 - 190000 rapes by US soldiers are less worse, because the Soviets did 2 million.

Hopefully someone else can explain you, why this statement is ashaming.

And still the Soviets persecuted at least partial rapes by their soldiers, while the US didn't care except it were black Americans.

The US have only an exceptional bad history in persecuting their own war crimes.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Your argument is also still basically, the 11.000 - 190000 rapes by US soldiers are less worse, because the Soviets did 2 million.

Hopefully someone else can explain you, why this statement is ashaming.

America should definitely be ashamed for lagging so far behind the Russians, just like we still do in hypersonic missile technology and alcohol consumption.

[Heathen Hammer]

you have a doubt who were the good guys and the bad guys during ww2? on what side would you have been? Switzerland?

Depends on which nationality/ethnic origins you are. To Jews, French and Poles, and Prussian aristocracy, Hitler was certainly the bad guy. To Indians, Africans and other aboriginal populations, Allies, that brutally occupied their homeland, were the bad guys. Many Asian nations, including communist China, still do view Hitler and Axis somewhat neutrally or even positively.
To a Russian guy, literally both sides were bad guys, some fought against both sides, some managed to switch sides between multiple times. World isn't black and white and nuance is a thing.
So my stance would depend on which nationality I am.

[mishkin]

Depends on which nationality/ethnic origins you are. To Jews, French and Poles, and Prussian aristocracy, Hitler was certainly the bad guy. To Indians, Africans and other aboriginal populations, Allies, that brutally occupied their homeland, were the bad guys. Many Asian nations, including communist China, still do view Hitler and Axis somewhat neutrally or even positively.
To a Russian guy, literally both sides were bad guys, some fought against both sides, some managed to switch sides between multiple times. World isn't black and white and nuance is a thing.
So my stance would depend on which nationality I am.

Yes, life is not black and white unless someone asks you directly which side you would have supported in World War II: f you had the option to choose, you would have shot the fascists or the allies.

Of course the allies did horrible things too, but "the fascists were the bad guys but the allies also did horrible things" really sounds like subterfuge for something.

[Heathen Hammer]

Yes, life is not black and white unless someone asks you directly which side you would have supported in World War II: f you had the option to choose, you would have shot the fascists or the allies.

Of course the allies did horrible things too, but "the fascists were the bad guys but the allies also did horrible things" really sounds like subterfuge for something.

You do realize "option to chose" wasn't there, right? Most of armies of major powers of WW2 were conscription-based, so you'd be fighting for whichever country you live in, most likely. And I pointed pout pretty clearly that good or bad depended on which nation you were. Allies may be liberators to Jewish concentration camp inmates, but to an Indian peasant or an African tribesman they were invaders and oppressor's just like Germans themselves were to Poles. In the same way, some Russians viewed Germans as liberators, some viewed them as evil occupiers (depending on how both Soviets and Germans treated region in question). Then there were places like Yugoslavia and Greece, where multiple factions fought each other and switched sides many times.

[Condottiere 40K]

1. Asians are several steps removed from what happened in Europe, much like the West is several steps removed from the Orient, so both can view events and historical figures there romantically.

2. Given the choice, I would bet that the run of the mill Wehrmacht personnel would vastly prefer to be interned by the Americans, rather than the Soviets.

3. The Great Patriotic War was inevitable: the Germans wanted to expand east, and the Russians have always wanted to expand west.