"Operation Gomorrha"

[GRUNHERZ]

Originally posted by Replicant
The sad thing is that there are some people out there that wished Nazi Germany hadn't been defeated.

Can anyone compare anything to what the Nazi's did?  I mean the Gestapo even killed their own.

Sure!  The Communists are far far worse. For example Stalin deliberatly killed some 20-30 million of his own people from 1925 to the late 1930s - this alone makes him worse than anything the Nazis did, they "only" managed to kill 12 million in their deliberate extermination efforts over their 12 year regime. Lets not forged Stalin also signed off on the start of WW2, sined off on and participated in the joint Nazi/Soviet invasion,  partion enslavement  and ultimate extermination of Poland and many of her citizens. Then of course there was the NKVD led Katyin massacre of 20,000 Poles right of the bat in 1939. Remember, Poland was the country that suffered more than any other in WW2. Then they went on to enslave half of europe for 50 years..  Of course it gets even worse if you start to add in Mao, Pol-Pot etc etc...

The truly sad thing is that there as still some people today, even on this BBS, who lament the communist defeat in the cold war, wish they won and think that stalin was a great leader... I wont name specific names, it would be impolite, but a hint is, one of those names may include the letters, in no particular order, b, o, r, o, d, and a...  

[Toad]

Man, wars start, you just don't know who's gonna die before they end, do ya?

[Furball]

Originally posted by Pooh21
Still would have been nice if Harris ended his days in 1945, dancing his way to hell at the end of a short rope. I live in Hamburg, My wife is from Hamburg. Our Grandmother had to run 2 miles to the Alster on the night of the firestorm to avoid being burnt alive. Doing more research this past week, I found that the bombers on that raid flew right over where my house is, A lanc crashed not a kilometer from here( and boy do I hope the crew managed to bail and float down into the inferno,instead of quickly riding it in) My house is on a top edge of the Firestorm area. There was a picture of my street in the Hamburger Abendblatt yesterday, nothing but burnt out shells. When they were doing plumbing work a couple of years ago, they had an 8foot deep hole dug in front walk in front of the apartments I live. The hole was filled with blackened old bricks the whole way down. On my way to work everyday I pass where the firestorm started. 35,000 people died in the area I live in one night, I wonder how many in my basement, and if they were the lucky ones who were carbon monoxcided. 35,000 thats 7+x the WTC. Old people, women and children mostly.  They survivors spoke of whirlwinds of flame, hurricane force winds sucking people into buildings. blizzards of sparks, a sound like an organ of hell. Infernal heat everywhere, asphalt roads melting and people being trapped in the molten asphalt.  Around 40,000 people died totl during the bombing raids that week. Less then 1% were from the 8th AF.  I don't fly lancs in AH anymore.

And my father grew up in a street in London where the only building standing were the block of flats that they lived in.

If the nazi b*stards had a bomber as capable as the lanc, you think they would have used it against british/any other countries  cities??

Europe spent virtually the entire first half of the last century either at war with, or worrying about war with germany. So don't act like you did nothing wrong.

[StSanta]

Dowding wrote:

This is the deal Santa - I DO believe the Allies were pure saints compared to the Nazis.

Well everything is relative. I happen to agree with you in the sense that if you compare allies (excluding Russians) to nazis, then the nazis are a lot worse. What I was trying to point out was that this does not necessarily mean that the allies were all good.

So it gets on my tits when people try to paint the Allies with the same bloody brush, understand? Yes the Allies did bad things, yes, civilians died - but compared to the blood on German hands its a drop in the ocean.

Am not trying to paint them with same brush. Am trying to remain objective. Even with the Germans killing some 10 million civilians or somesuch, the deliberate  killing of hundreds of thousands of refugees/citizens held up in cities is STILL a bad thing. It's nothing compared to the nazis, that is true, but it's still pretty bad.

The nazi regime was a sick and twisted one with no moral compass. The allies were the good guys here. And in 90% of the cases they did the honourable thing - but still at times they stooped to methods better left to their enemy.

"The Allies were just as bad as the Germans" is apologist BS of the highest degree.

Read my post again and you'll see that I never made that claim (if you're referring to me that is). I am saying that the nazis were horrible and that the allies also did some pretty bad things. But there's a clear distinction in degree.

That's all I have to say on this subject.

'Winners write history'. Had Germany won a lot of US/British airforce people would have been executed for genocide. Ironic, huh?

FWIW, I disagree with the carpet bombing of German towns. The Americans at least tried to hit military targets. with the exception of the two nuclear bombs. The latter I think saved more lives than they took, but I am not sure you can say the same about say the firebombing of Dresden or Hamburg. So I disagree with this part of the war but let there be no doubt; I am very thankful for the fact that the Germans lost. There are no illusions in my mind about what kind of a regime the nazi one was and how many (endless) times better the UK/US was/is. Am just saying that we need to be open enough to recognize a bad thing regardless of which side does it. And 'bad thing' is different from 'horrible thing', so i am not equalling the two.

[Dowding]

Like I said, the Allies did do some horrific things. But I stand by the assertion that relative to the Nazis or the Japs it was a drop in the ocean. That does not neccessarily justify those acts, but it puts them in perspective.

Read my post again and you'll see that I never made that claim (if you're referring to me that is).

I wasn't aiming that comment at you, or anybody in particular. But I have seen it on this board, and I think it is a common view. The worrying thing is that young modern Germans seem to hold that view too, according to a newspaper I was reading the other day.

The statement 'the victors write the history books' has some truth to it. But all too often it is used as a thinly veiled apologist argument i.e. the crimes were not as bad as made out because of hype and propaganda.  

The Americans at least tried to hit military targets.

Apart from the firebombing of Tokyo you mean?

Am just saying that we need to be open enough to recognize a bad thing regardless of which side does it. And 'bad thing' is different from 'horrible thing', so i am not equalling the two.

I am in complete agreement and have said as much previously. But its the second sentence that people have problems with - they are not prepared to make that judgement.

[_Schadenfreude_]

Originally posted by Furball
And my father grew up in a street in London where the only building standing were the block of flats that they lived in.

If the nazi b*stards had a bomber as capable as the lanc, you think they would have used it against british/any other countries  cities??

Europe spent virtually the entire first half of the last century either at war with, or worrying about war with germany. So don't act like you did nothing wrong.

Since I doubt very much whether Pooh was actually active in the Nazi party in wartime Germany he can act like he did nothing wrong - bombing of Dresden btw was considered by many in Britain to be a war crime and for that reason it was many years before the statue of Arthur Harris was put up.

War is a nasty messy business and there are very few black's and white's - was fighting Hitler's Germany a just war - yes, was Stalin worse than Hitler - probably, where the Allied forces blameless in terms of death of civilians and prisoner's of war - of course not.

[Furball]

I was talking about the country when i said that, not him personally.

Threads like these just bug me very much.

[ccvi]

Originally posted by Furball
Threads like these just bug me very much.

Like most others. That's why there are war's after all. If everyone was looking at things a completely objective and calm way there wouldn't.



Was the genoicde in germany actually a war crime? Weren't the most jews killed within germany's borders by police not military, so this would be an internal affair? This of course doesn't makes things less horrible, but comparing if one war crime is worse than another war crime...