Nazi War Criminals

Isaac wrote:

You mischaracterize my comments, hopefully not purposefully. I did not say it was silly to mention the internment of the Japanese Americans. I said it was silly to mention it in regard to war crimes (thus placing it on the same level as systematic, genocidal mass murder).

 

The internment of enemy aliens took place in many countrys for obvious reasons - fear of sabotage/espionage from some, but also for their own protection from attacks by the native population as happened in Britain (and probably elsewhere) in WWI, it can hardly be called a crime.

 

I would't call it a war crime either, as they apparently lived under decent conditions in those camps.
But emprisoning somebody just because of his origins surely is not right

Apparently General Eisenhower was not threatened because of his german origins. :-?

 

Of course, Grieg, one must not compare the two. If you´ve got the impression that I do, I must be to blame for the misunderstanding.

The discussion is, unfortunately, due to this item, veering off, not only Nazi crimes but serious Allied crimes as well.

Holocaust was on the agenda for quite short time ago. If we stick to the theme here, what Nazi crimes can you mention, that were not committed by the Allies?
Was one of the indictments in Nurnberg: planning and waging an aggressive war a crime, at all? Soviets did it (Poland, Finland, Romania, even Baltic states)
At one time or another one can say the same thing of probably all the Powers. Still, it was German leaders that were hanged.

Atrocities against civilians (minus Holocaust: was not the whole partisan movement organized by Moscow, fully aware that it imperils the civilians).

Was the destruction of Warsaw uprising and levelling of the city a crime? The city was made abattlefield by the Polish Governmaent in London in order to take the city before the Soviets. The Germans took the city, imprisoned the insurgents as POWs, led the population out of the city and leveled it. Crime or not?

 

Isaac wrote:

My only contribution to this thread was the comment about Japanese internment not being comparable to the Nazi or Japanese war crimes.
I wouldn't care to defend every action taken by the Allied powers during the war. If a blanket defense is possible one might start by noting that the actions taken by the Allies were in response to unprovoked aggression by Germany and Japan that threatened their very survival.

 

But Grieg: you don´t mean that anybody threatened USA´s existence, do you?
Bombing Dresden in Feb. ´45 was not a desperate act done for self preservation. Nor Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Defence is not possible I´m afraid. If we areto maintain or regain high moral standards, we ought to call these acts what they were: criminal, and promise ourselves never repeat it again. imo.

 

After war is declared, all is allowed by both sides; by the agressor to win and be hailed as victors, by the defenders because they are morally "clean", they have been agressed against. Therefore the charge of planning and starting aggressive war is definitely valid; it unleashes the utmost of both sides, at least in times of total war. Those who planned it but did not start it, however, ultimately go unpunished because they unleashed nothing and were the defenders instead.

 

Isaac wrote:

I wasn't speaking specifically of the US however the point is certainly debatable. Had the UK and other democratic European powers fallen (along with the Soviets) and all of Europe and Asia been under the control of the Axis powers one has to question how long such a powerful world dominating force would countenance a free and democratic America existing alongside their new world order.
The reason I say a blanket defense is that when looked at individually one cannot defend the actions you mention (IMO ) however one must look at them in context of the time and the situation facing the leaders of the threatened free world.
In retrospect I imagine few would today approve of the decision to bomb Dresden, however Hiroshima/Nagasaki is very different even when looked at with hindsight.
A good case can be made for their destruction saving more lives than they took.
One thing cannot be denied, and this relates to the peculiar "morality" of war ; the nuclear attacks preserved Allied lives and that was the primary motivating force behind the decsion to use them(and properly so).
It is merely incidental that a good case can be made that it also resulted in fewer Japanese casualties as well.

 

One of the injustices of the Japanese-American internment is that there was no equivalent treatment of Italian- and German-Americans. I knew a gentleman who was in the camps as a young child. His older sister wrote a book of their experiences. The biggest problem was that they families were forced to sell off most of their possessions and the incredible boredom. Their father never recovered his fishing boat and business. The camps were closed (and the people released) before the end of the war.

 

Please keep in mind that the debate was not whether the decision to inter Japanese Americans was just or unjust but whether it constituted a war crime and more to the point should it be discussed in the context of the brutal war crimes of the Nazi's and the Japanese.
Clearly not.

 

I do not think the internments were war crimes, and do not really believe that it belongs in this thread. Injustice yes, war crime no!

There is no comparison between these acts and the truly horrific war crimes of the Germans and Japanese.

 

Issac, put the blame where it belongs, the German and Japanese leaders who continued to wage war when they were clearly beaten, not the US or the Brits. Defense of these actions is quite possible, the western allies were doing everything possible to end the war as soon as possible with the least loss possible to their peoples. The alternative to Hiroshima and Nagasaki were an invasion with undoubtly huge Japanese civilian casualties as well as American military, or mass starvation of the Japanese people through blockade.

 

I think Dr.Mengele remained uncaptured after the war.Such a nice fellow!

 

Let's face it if one wins the war he is hailed as a hero even if he commited war crimes:
A good case USS WAHOO:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=27221
If your side loses the war you are a criminal:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=21491

Some justice after 60 years. Former communist head of security service accused of genocide ( over political opossition) after a ww2:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=78380&start=0

 

This is seriously getting off the original topic , in the initial question I was asking if there were any nazi war criminals from ww2 still uncaptured , and there where-a-bouts unknown , you can tell of neo-nazi criminals if you can't think of any ww2 nazi criminals still on the loose.

 

Don't worry too much about it, pretty much every topic on here goes OT sooner or later!

The answer to your initial question is yes there are, however for the most part I think it's increasingly accepted that the majority are dead by now even if their remains are not yet discovered (WRT Megele, wasn't there some question about the skeleton that was supposed to be his remains being too short to actually have been his? Or am I thinking of something/someone completely different?).

 

Not to defend that action however neither Morton nor the Yahoo survived the war. Had they done so he might have had to answer for his actions.

 

You can't defend the bombing of Dresden with this specific argument though. The OKW fought on because it had learned of Operation Eclipse as early as October 1944, more than four months before the bombing of Dresden. In short the Germans "continued to wage war when they were clearly beaten" in order to prevent the unconditional surrender that the Allies would impose upon Germany even if they put down their arms before they were utterly defeated.

 

This does however not "excuse" the deliberate killing of civilians.

If arguing this way, nazis could say that they starved millions of soviet prisoners to death, because they wanted to spare the food for their own soldiers and workers, so they would be bether fed and could end the war more quickly.

There is no doubt that the allies were figthing a just war,and especially among the western allies, war crimes were exceptions, whereas on the axis side they were more or less the rule.
But there clearely were some war crimes comitted by the allies and they should be condemmed.

 

I was watching a program on nazi war criminals a year or two ago , and there were still around a dozen or so on the loose. A majority of them are dead , but there are still some out there.