Hitler, the Nazis and World War Two etc etc

[brummie]

If WWII shows anything it shows that in time of war civilized behaviour and 'rules' of warfare go out the window, and that the winners decide who to blame. While the Nazi warcrimes were easily the most vile and offensive and clearly deserved more punishment than was handed out less was made of the Japanese crimes in China and its treatment of allied POWs not to mention the sneak attack on Pearl Harbour all worthy of condemnation.
Allied hands were not entirely clean either as in the reprisals carried out by the red army in Ukraine and Germany.While you may say they were understandable given the savagery of the Nazi regime nevertheless crimes.
The British fire bombing of whole cities like Dresden and Cologne was also clearly against any convention banning the targetting of civilian populations.
On that subject also the US must be held accountable for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs,weapons which make no pretence of selecting military targets but exist only to obliterate whole cities.Especially as this was at a time when the Japanese Navy and air force had been all but destroyed and bombers were pounding Japan with impunity,and a new Japanese government was already negotiating surrender.

[Phil H]

On that subject also the US must be held accountable for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs,weapons which make no pretence of selecting military targets but exist only to obliterate whole cities.Especially as this was at a time when the Japanese Navy and air force had been all but destroyed and bombers were pounding Japan with impunity,and a new Japanese government was already negotiating surrender.

So the 500,000 or more casualties (including 100,000s of civilians) predicted had the US been forced to invade the Japanese home islands would have been a "better" option than the casualties at Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

In that light you could see the nuclear attacks as "humane" even "clean".

I'd also wager that, had the "bomb" not been used there an then - and thus proven to exist - the Cold war would not have turned out as it did. There would have been questions to answer about whether the US atomic weapon actually worked - Russia might have claimed it was simply words and propaganda to frighten others, not a practical weapon.

Thus the Japanese atomic attacks, however, appalling by most standards, introduced a wholly new era of warfare - the atomic age - in a way that shocked the world into taking the new development seriously. It showed the arrival of a new weapon, and meant no other time or place was needed as a demonstration.

If the two cities had not been attached in 1945, I am convinced either the US or Russia would have used the "bomb" in other circumstances later - Berlin (during the airlift) maybe, or Korea when the UN forces were under threat in the earlier stages (we know MacArthur wanted to use the bomb against China and was dismissed for that reason)?

Without Horoshima and Nagaski there might have been a need to demonstrate willingness to use a real weapon, in even more dangerous circumstances.

I recognise this is pragmatism in the extreme and takes nothing from the horror and awfulness at what happened in late 1945, but just maybe it was the best of a number of bad options.

Phil

[Robert]

I don't know about the Japanese considering surrender. After all, after two atomic bombs they were still considering! This might suggest a lack of urgency.

[Phil H]

I don't know about the Japanese considering surrender. After all, after two atomic bombs they were still considering! This might suggest a lack of urgency.

And also to Truman - having to make decisions involving the loss of large numbers of American lives - that they might fight on. Either way the decision for the president was a difficult moral and political one.

I admire Truman quite a bit.

Phil

[Errata]

Phil H:

I think you'd find that feelings of "guilt" were limited to far less than the majority after the war, on all sides. Let's not forget that war crimes were not limited to the Axis powers, though theirs were by far the more severe. Look at the Nuremberg trials for instance with the high ranking Nazis, only Albert Speer really showed any genuine remorse - the rest remained in denial or stated that they were "just following orders", if they stated anything at all.

Personally I think it's just a little ridiculous to be chasing war criminals now, yet some organisations still try and do it. All of the major offenders have now either been brought to justice or are dead, the few that are remaining were very minor links in the chain and are now men who are well into their 80's and 90's - go after war criminals, absolutely - they deserve to be brought to justice - but i'm not sure what exactly it's going to solve by chasing people who are either too old or frail to stand trial, and certainly for it to drag on for months or even years as some recent cases have highlighted. It just re-opens 70 year old wounds.

If they wanted them they should have gone after them 30,40,50 years ago when they were after Eichmann and Mengele and the other big fish.

Cheers,
Adam.

I'm of two minds about this one.

It is my understanding that there was a list of war criminals that were wanted for questioning/trial. And they were after them the same time they were after Eichmann and Mengele, they just didn't find them. I do not think it's the case that they kept shopping for new people to hunt down.

There is certainly no practical benefit in trying a 90 year old camp commandant. But there may be some more intangible benefits that outweigh the slightly obsessive nature of Nazi hunters.

Firstly there are still camp survivors, and they deserve justice. And by the very nature of war crimes trials, they already may not get it. My friends mom was a child in Dachau, and her mother and sister were shot in the face by a guard who then brought her to a guard shack to be gang raped by his buddies. Now, had this happened in another place and another time, the cops would not stop looking for that man. And there would be no statute of limitations. But because its a War Crimes tribunal, the man who did that will never be pursued for justice. He and his were dismissed as unimportant, while certainly my friends mom would prefer to have that lowly guard hang than Ribbentrop or Frank. But that makes it more important for the leaders and for the men who created this environment to be held accountable, not less.

I'm also not really comfortable with the idea that there should be a point at which we stop pursuing the architects of genocide. I mean, if you're home free after 20 years, what does that say to people currently waging a genocidal war? We already don't handle it well. We already don't do enough or care enough. I don't think we need to announce to the world that we really only give a crap for about a decade, but we don't have the attention span or the requisite moral outrage to keep caring beyond that.

But currently, no one benefits from a Nazi war crimes trial at this remove. There may be a sense of closure, but there is no satisfaction to be had. So it might be slightly ridiculous.

[Robert]

Phil, I think you may be right that any alternative method of prosecuting the war would have cost even more Japanese lives (I'm assuming that an unopposed conventional bombing campaign or an economic blockade would not have cost many Allied lives). Even an economic blockade where the Americans just sat there and starved the Japanese into submission would probably have led to precisely that - starvation. And of course the intervention of the USSR would have led to a new ball game in any event.

[Hunter]

If the atomic bombs had not been dropped, I would probably not be here. My father's ship was destined to go into a Japanese harbor to clear mines for the invasion forces. It was as close to a suicide mission as you could get, but was deemed necessary to quickly establish a port of supply for the invasion forces. Also, there were not many viable beachheads outside of heavily populated areas because of the mountainous terrain.

My dad's ship had just gotten back into service after a Kamikaze attack that had struck the bridge at Okinawa, killing every officer on board. A chief petty officer 'captained' that ship all the way back to 'Pearl'.

Those who were there will tell you that there was no sign of Japanese capitulation.

[Robert]

Yes Hunter, and I am "racist" enough, if you like, to think that Allied lives were more important than Japanese ones. Sorry if that offends anyone, but that's how I feel. The Japanese started the war.

[Errata]

Yes Hunter, and I am "racist" enough, if you like, to think that Allied lives were more important than Japanese ones. Sorry if that offends anyone, but that's how I feel. The Japanese started the war.

I think a "don't pick fights you can't win" attitude is perfectly valid

[Adam Went]

Errata:

I certainly understand where you're coming from, and i'm extremely sorry indeed to hear what happened to your relatives in the camps, they are unspeakable crimes which were committed and the perpetrators should absolutely be brought to justice, or already have been brought to justice, if it was possible to do so.

However, what we must keep in mind here is that it's well recognised that the last major Nazi to be captured post-WWII was Klaus Barbie, the "Butcher Of Lyon". That was in the 1980's! So it's been a good 25 years since these Nazi hunting organisations have turned up somebody which could be considered a "big fish".

Have you seen a recent series called "The Last Nazis" ? This chronicles the search and attempts to bring to justice the last of the Nazi war criminals. And it's just a never ending circle of being unable, for some reason or another, to bring them to trial, being unable to track them down despite the fact that they are into their 90's, and then if they actually get put on trial, the months and months that it drags on for.

It just seems that they are going after whoever these days, picking up the last crumbs off the plate that are there to be taken.

Yes, the remaining survivors deserve justice, and yes, criminals should be brought to justice, but as I said before, more effort should have been put into hunting them down, as with Eichmann and Mengele, when they were still young enough to stand trial as a war criminal - now, catching them and convicting them so they serve a few weeks or months in prison before they die naturally anyway isn't really achieving anything, IMO.

As I said, it wasn't just the Axis powers who committed war crimes. You won't see the Russian soldier conquerors who repeatedly gang raped and beat innocent German civilians ever brought to justice, for instance.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Robert]

Hi Adam

I don't think we can say "Either hunt down all war criminals or none, because anything else is unfair." The ones who do get hunted down are getting just a taste of punishment before they leave this world, and I don't see why they shouldn't be called to account. Also, I think it's asking too much of people to demand that they be ultra-objective. I would guess that most of these Nazi hunters are Jewish, because the Jews suffered disproportionately at the hands of the Nazis. Those same Jewish Nazi hunters don't seem particularly interested in bringing Japanese war criminals to book - but I don't blame them for that.

[Errata]

There isn't that much time left anyway. At the 100 year anniversary of Kristallnacht, no one will be alive who participated in the Nazi persecution of Jews, and the investigations will close for everyone but the academics. Thats in about 30 years, and theres no harm in people pursuing it in the meantime. So what if a guy dies in jail after being sentenced only two weeks earlier? So what if these guys are exposed as Nazis even if they cannot stand trial? The only people it hurts are the Nazis involved, and since all of them have had warrants out for their arrest since the 50s, they clearly have had opportunities to defend themselves if they chose to. I'm not gonna feel bad about some guy living in South America, or Brooklyn or wherever who has been hiding from having to take responsibility for his actions for 60 years. If it gives people peace, or some sense of closure I'm not going to waste my time crying over a guy who could have, at any time, renounced his former affiliations, gone to trial, and get sentenced for time served and gone home.

Israel is the one issuing warrants for Nazi war crimes, and the last one I know of was somewhen in the early 60s for a man they thought had died but didn't. I mean, if there are other Nazi hunters tracking people down to point at them and yell "Nazi!" well, I guess everyone needs a hobby. But if there is no very old warrant, they aren't going to be pursued for trial. And it's still pretty much my firm belief that anyone who makes a lampshade from human skin probably needs to die in jail just on general principle, but that's me.

I mean, I know it seems like these Nazi hunters are random and rabid. And they may be rabid. But it isn't random. And it may not seem like it achieves anything to imprison a 90 year old man for a crime he committed 70 years ago, but it certainly signals to survivors that justice for them is still important. Late as the justice may be. People who commit murder go to jail. And if they run, they go to jail when we find them. And their age or the amount of time since the murder does not alter that. And I don't think you would argue that it should. But war crimes and genocide is not a lesser crime than some dumb kid killing his girlfriend in a rage, and if we think that dumb kid should go to jail when we catch him 30 years later, I don't think we can ask people to give up hunting war criminals. Even if we ourselves would have given up long ago.

Are the guys gonna find anyone major? Probably not. But they aren't looking for just anyone who ever wore a swastika. If they find someone, great. If not, oh well. But it's never a wasted effort. Even the most powerless guy on those lists played a significant part in the systemic eradication of 10 million human beings. Even the smallest player they find is still responsible for any number of deaths. Heim from the Last Nazis was a nobody in the Nazi political structure. But he killed hundreds of people. Because he felt like it. I don't care if he's ancient, or even if he can't be tried. I want to know where a guy like that is, if for no other reason so that I can avoid him. I'd want to know where an old Ted Bundy was.

But most importantly, any effort towards justice and telling victims that they matter, no matter how much time has passed, is never a wasted effort. And we recognize that or else we would have a statute of limitation on murder.

[Adam Went]

Robert & Errata:

Once again it is a difficult topic to debate, and absolutely I agree with most of what you're both saying - if the opportunity is there to bring a war criminal to justice, then it should be done. There's no question at all about that. There's no way that any authorities should catch such a criminal and say "oh well, you're on your deathbed anyway, we'll let you off."

My point of view is more of a "bigger picture" one. Maybe it's because i'm younger and I wasn't around when the Nazi atrocities were still fresh in the minds of people. I was born in the same year that the Berlin Wall came down, perhaps the most important step since 1945 of reconciling the world was one, especially Germany and the Allied nations.

So many major steps forward have been taken in the last few years - i've mentioned the D-Day reunion between those who were shooting at each other 60 years beforehand, as just one example. I've seen Japanese soldiers touring Pearl Harbour with their American counterparts.

Yet every now and then, we hear about the dragging on and on of a trial of an elderly Nazi. And it goes on and on because as the years go by, there's fewer and fewer first hand witnesses. There's more technicalities, more objections, more legal hurdles, more medical considerations.

Eichmann was captured in 1960 and was executed by 1962, as a major example. The Nuremberg war criminal defendants who were sentenced to be executed had their sentences carried out within 18 months of the official German surrender. It just doesn't happen like that now.

It just seems as though with all the reconciling and healing that has happened around the world since that terrible time, every time one of these trials comes up, it drags us backwards again - old wounds, if they ever could be anything resembling healed, are re-opened. Old memories come flooding back, old hatreds, old prejudices. And all for the sake of putting somebody in their 90's behind bars for a few weeks or months that they have left.

The Aribert Heim situation is a prime example, Errata. I don't know what the current status is there but they'd been after him for a long time, and yet there's word that he's been dead since the mid-90's. If he's alive, he would BE in his mid-90's.

Should they just be allowed to get away with it? No, absolutely NOT. No such crime should go unpunished. But there is no viable reason why they couldn't have gone after a 90 year old when they were 80, 70, or 60. Have they really been that good at hiding from everybody for the past 70 years?

As said before, one can't help but get the feeling that they choose certain targets now who they wouldn't have bothered with before because all the major criminals have now either been brought to justice or are dead.

I wonder if the Japanese soldiers who tortured Australian prisoners in Singapore (stories some of my family members have heard first-hand) ever got brought to justice?

Cheers,
Adam.

[Phil H]

I can (just about) see how a "war criminal" can be perceived at the top and even slightly lower levels of Government - in the Third Reich (Hitler, Goering, Himmler, the Commandant of Aushwitz etc might be examples.

[That said, I have distinct issues with the "justice" at Nuremberg where people were tried for "crimes" that did not exist beforehand.]

At lower and the lowest levels (Demanjuk might be an example - apologies if I have mispelled his name) I have real problems.

How could a man under orders, at least without a suicidal willingness to have themselves killed , demur if ordered to do things under a repressive regime. Tyrannies from Hitler's to Saddam's would have had no compunction in enforcing obedience through killing those who did not obey, and probably their families too.

Under those circumstances, how many of us would (in the event), say no to doing what everyone else around them was doing? Certainly if the alternative would be that we would be despised and not understood by our colleagues and even friends in the unit - who might feel threatened by our attitude -and that we would be tortured or killed?

It is easy to say "I was only obeying orders" is no defence. But when push comes to shove, I think it probably is a justification. The small cog being martyred will almost certainly not change anything, it wouldn't even be the pebble that starts an avalanche.

Post regime morality is easy and sounds great, but is actually a rather nasty settling of scores by the victor.

Muamar Gaddafi probably deserved what he got, so did a Keitel or a Goering, but the little men - and 60 years after the event - let them rest (unless you can specifically demonstrate that they were personally sadistic, murderous or evil).

Phil

Phil

[Robert]

Hi Phil

Yes, your example of a man participating in an atrocity because he knows that if he refuses, the same fate will be visited on his family, is a tricky one. But I don't believe that people who have a normal moral sense actually exonerate themselves in this way. In other words, once the war was over and their familes were either dead or safe, one would imagine the sense of guilt beginning to gnaw. I'm sure we have all known (non-war) people who blame themselves for things that couldn't conceivably be said to be their fault. This is how most people are. Any Nazi who gunned down or gassed people because it was orders, and who then lived the rest of his life without suicide, mental illness, confession or at least a lifetime devoted to good works, seems very suspect to me. How can these people live with themselves?