Dresden POW survivor video interview

[PR3D4TOR]

That's ridiculous and you know it.  Find one source, one single source, that the holocaust was thought by anyone to be an act of military necessity.  One single source.

Obviously the Nazis deemed it necessary. How dare you question them you armchair quarterback.

[eagl]

So the only crime the Nazis were guilty of was losing the war. Check.

So by your argument, anytime someone defeats a predatory or genocidal assailant, the victor is guilty of the same or worse atrocities as those that made the defense required, and not only that, after the war is over the genocidal assailant who started the whole thing is guilty only of losing the war?

You're a loon.  And a fairly obvious troll.  On a small scale, think of a guy who starts killing his neighbors, kills a few dozen of them, and he operates out of his home.  His home is occupied by his wife who doesn't participate in the killing, but who provides support.  His home is also occupied by his 2 children who he is training to continue his exercise in murder.  He's a wiley bandit, and we know that tomorrow he's going to kill another 10 people so we have to stop him tonight, and the only way we are sure we can do it is to attack him while he's in his house, which will probably kill his wife and kids.  What is the moral thing to do?  Who is guilty of the inevitable tragic results?  Does the killing of his whole family to stop his murderous rampage make "us" as bad as or worse than him?

And what do I think about some jerkwad armchair quarterback who a week later, discovers that oh yea if we'd done this one thing differently we could have stopped him without killing his whole family, and therefore the person who ordered the raid was guilty of an unnecessary crime?  Nevermind that at the time any other known course of action would have resulted in 10 more dead people due to the indecision or inability to make a moral distinction between killing "innocents" who are supporting or shielding a mass murderer, and the victims (and future targets/victims) of the mass murderer?  I'll back up the leader who is able to make that moral distinction almost any day over some loser armchair quarterback who thinks he's smarter than the people who were actually there having to make the tough choices.

The winner writes the history books but its pretty clear to me that trying to crucify the people who stopped hitler and who were desperate to find an alternative to an infantry invasion of Japan is despicable. 

[Arlo]

[eagl]

Obviously the Nazis deemed it necessary. How dare you question them you armchair quarterback.

Prove that they deemed it necessary.  Available documentation that I've read indicates that it was considered a social program not a military action.  And of course you are essentially making the point that the holocaust was a military action and therefore potentially justifiable under some circumstances.  I have not and would not make nor support that claim.

[PR3D4TOR]

There is no morally justifiable reason to deliberately kill non-combatants. None. It doesn't matter if you march people to the showers or burn them to death in their homes. It's senseless slaughter no matter the methods employed or how you rationalize it. Murder.

[PR3D4TOR]

Prove that they deemed it necessary.  Available documentation that I've read indicates that it was considered a social program not a military action.  And of course you are essentially making the point that the holocaust was a military action and therefore potentially justifiable under some circumstances.  I have not and would not make nor support that claim.

Quotes from the Center of Holocaust And Genocide Studies:

Practical aspects

Another main element in the shaping of the Final Solution was the practical aspect. To large parts of the Nazi bureaucracy, especially the occupation powers in Eastern Europe, mass murder was the solution to serious practical problems. This was first of all the case with the overcrowded Polish ghettos, to which more (German) Jews were deported beginning in the autumn of 1941. To kill the Polish Jews – beginning with those incapable of working – was a practical solution to this real (but self-contrived!) problem.

On the eastern front, the German offensive had not been completed in the course of the autumn of 1941. The Red Army had not been defeated in another ‘Blitzkrieg’, and the German war machine had come to a stop as winter approached. In this situation it was deemed impossible to provision this enormous area. The provisioning of the German army had the highest priority, of course, followed by the local population. At the bottom of this ‘food hierarchy’ came the Jews. Jewish women, children and the elderly, in particular, were of no use to the Germans, and killing them thus became the solution to this ‘problem’.



Security aspects

According to the Nazis’ anti-Semitic ideology it was a logical notion to view all Jews as a potential threat against the Third Reich. The Jews, particularly in the German-occupied parts of the Soviet Union, were seen as a threat lingering behind the front. But the Nazis seem to have viewed the local Jews as cooperating with partisan- and resistance groups in other German-occupied countries around Europe as well. From a security point of view it was thus ‘logical’ to remove this threat against Germany by getting rid of the Jews. In Western Europe this happened by deporting the Jews to extermination camps and concentration camps, in Eastern Europe members of the so-called Einsatzgruppen shot thousands of Jews on the spot.



Economic aspects

Some historians have focused on the economic aspects of the Final Solution. According to these scholars, many German planners and bureaucrats simply viewed the Jews as completely superfluous. This attitude was particularly widespread in the Nazi regime’s many economic institutions. In the new Nazi Europe, which these bureaucrats were busy planning, there was no room for inferior races like the Jews. This cynical attitude also applied to the local Eastern European populations, but the Jews remained firmly at the bottom of this ‘population hierarchy’. What was to happen with these Jews? According to the planners, the easiest thing was to let them starve to death, but many viewed this as inhuman and very uncivilised. In their opinion it was much more effective, quick and humane, to have them murdered in the extermination camps.

[ink]

There is no morally justifiable reason to deliberately kill non-combatants. None. It doesn't matter if you march people to the showers or burn them to death in their homes. It's senseless slaughter no matter the methods employed or how you rationalize it. Murder.

QFT

[BaDkaRmA158Th]

"All this was done in our name"

[Groth]

 Prove they deemed it necessary?
 They continued to kill Jews, homosexuals and gypsys until they very last day...
 I would say they PROVED their intent...
 IN by God
                                              JGroth

[Groth]

 IF the germans had utilized the jews(MANY having fought valiantly in  WW1)those of lower means in the EAST(IE:peasents, etc)
as compatriots in the fight against soviets, instead of wasting resources killing them, stalins russia would have fallen.
                   Just my 5cents
                                      JGroth

[SIM]

This topic has been debated over and over and over...............


I'm glad the war ended. I mourn the deaths incurred on all sides.

But the reality is, World War 2 ended in 1945. Nothing I can do to change anything that happened then, but I can damn sure work to prevent a recurrence today.

Bringing up this topic, YET AGAIN, is nothing but the cry of someone in need of attention. Typical troll.

Beating this dead horse is and will always be, beating a DEAD horse.

[eagl]

There is no morally justifiable reason to deliberately kill non-combatants. None. It doesn't matter if you march people to the showers or burn them to death in their homes. It's senseless slaughter no matter the methods employed or how you rationalize it. Murder.

I disagree.  Non-combatants that harbor or support combatants become legitimate targets.  Some non-combatants may become unavoidable collateral casualties if they are unfortunate to be too close to legitimate targets when the boom happens.  This is very unfortunate, tragic even, but it isn't murder.  Sucks, but that's war for you.  Its a great reason to stay out of wars, I think, because neither side comes out feeling good about it and the tragic events can't be un-done no matter who "wins".  Geneva conventions and the US interpretation of the laws of armed combat fully support this determination (although the JAG may use slightly different words to explain the same thing).  Glad you're not in charge because sometimes hard decisions need to be made.

Don't worry, its not just me.  Every nuke certified USAF officer made that same choice before they completed certification.  Some people like you can't handle the grave responsibility, opt out, and are given other things to do.

[eagl]

Prove they deemed it necessary?
 They continued to kill Jews, homosexuals and gypsys until they very last day...
 I would say they PROVED their intent...
 IN by God
                                              JGroth

So you're saying that their continued mass murder of Jews by the nazis had a military objective?  You jumped into the middle of a conversation there buddy and totally missed what was going on, by god. 

It was predator claiming that killing the jews was a legitmate military action no different than US bombing raids aimed at turning off enemy military material production.  I am arguing that there the difference between the two actions is crucial to making moral, if tragic and horrible, military decisions in time of war.  If you don't see the difference between the holocaust and allied bombing raids then I am very sorry for you because you're pretty much justifying Hitler's worst crimes if that's how you see it.

[Groth]

Golly Gee..Wiz Bang...they spent money they COULD NOT afford, diverting same from feeding their populace, their solders, their health care for both. From their armaments to even defend themselves...but..according to your 'blessed' perception does NOT prove their intent????
I yield to your superior intellect...all hail!!!
                                                              JGroth

[eagl]

As for a 6 year veteran's statements being truth or "right" because he's a veteran... I wouldn't dream of taking anything away from his experience or minimize what he went through but I've spent 19 years fighting the war Saddam Hussein started when he invaded Kuwait and which still hasn't ended yet, and has expanded to multiple theaters.  6 years fighting a world war is unbelievably hard but I've been doing this 3 times as long and I'm still at work every day overseeing in real-time these very real decisions that seem to be dismissed as mystical theoretical rainbow unicorn fart issues.  My job has been killing people, threatening entire populations with nukes, and training the next generation of killers for 3 times that number of years. 

I'm sorry but a veteran with an opinion is not always right when making statements about legitimacy of operations they were part of but did not have to make decisions about.  Feel free to check out USAF laws of armed conflict instructional briefings.  Google will probably turn up a whole bunch of briefings on the subject of legitimate targets.  The strongest argument against horrific attacks like the Dresden and Tokyo firebombings come from the principle of proportionality.  That idea was known and generally followed by those who ordered the attacks, but they still felt they were necessary to bring the war to a timely end with the goal of ultimately saving more lives.  I'm 100% in favor of learning from what transpired so that stuff doesn't have to happen again, but second guessing them is chickenpoop.