Greatest Allied Atrocity of W.W.II

First of all, I would like you to tell me where do I say that the treatment of Japanese-Americans can be compared to the German concentration camps prisoners'...

If you read my post carefully I am speaking about the concept and format of the camps. Whether they were British, Spanish, Russian, German or Americans they were intended as prisons to keep on eye on certain sorts of people. That's it what make all of them the same.

Japanese-Americans were NOT - as I posted - starved-to-death, summarily executed nor worked-to-death. There's no way they can be compared in that way to German or Soviet ones.

I did not compare it otherwise.
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Which means, VERY expansionist... Because expansionism also include ideological and economical expansion... McDonald's is a good example of expansionism. (Not a bloody one, but still...)

Completely true. There's even a heart-breakening film of the time in which a Russian girl is knelt and crying before a British officer begging him not to sent her back to the Soviet Union...

Kai, thanks for the site about Dachau. There it shows that 520 German guards were executed either by American soldiers or camp prisoners. I think that such a crime is slightly justified since you have 520 Germans killed, responsible of the deaths of about 100.000 people in that camp alone.

Katyn was a summary, mass execution of 5.000 captured Polish officers, whose only crime was being defeated in a multi-frontal war started by their two totalitarian neighbours, having numerical, technological and industrial inferiority...

You're right about it. That is the whole lenght of the crime alone. There were no bad treatments, executions, starvation. But it is still a clear sign of racist segregation and a refusal of basic human rights granted by the US constitution.

There's a special thread about this. Please, post your comments there and read everyone else's...

Completely true.

This is completely wrong. Even 70.000 is too high...

 

Not so either in number or statement. If you attack me, be assured I will feel justified to use whatever weapon I have at my disposal to save my own citizen soldier's lives and consign your citizens to hell. This is to make you, and others think twice later. Any other attitude is not acceptable to most Americans.

A good thing for the world to remember. I personally wonder why they seem to forget that so often. Yes we are fat, arrogant and soft.. but enough of us stay hard to buy time for us all to get hard. American trait, you see...

 

Thank you Richard, I can see how the swastika is relevant and would serve to catch people’s attention. No doubt the collectors here have your book.

No.9

 

Greenjacket, Imagine if you were ripped out of your home along with your family, deprived of all your possessions, your business or means of livelihood is closed/terminated, the rest of your family is incarcerated and transported to the middle of a desert in a concertina encircled lot of wooded bungalows and you are deprived of every right Guaranteed to you by the US constitution. All of this for no reason. You yourself or family have done nothing.

5,ooo Japanese-Americans serving in the US military were discharged and classified as enemy-aliens (4-c).

In the entire course of the war, 10 people were convicted of spying for Japan, all were caucasian.

To Roosevelt, April 22, 1943:
...My friends in the War Relocation Authority, like Secretary Ickes, are deeply distressed over the effects of the entire evacuation and relocation program upon the Japanese-Americans, particularly upon the young citizen group. Persons in this group find themselves living in an atmosphere for which their public school and democratic teachings have not prepared them. It is hard for them to escape a conviction that their plight is due more to racial discrimination, economic motivations, and wartime prejudices than to any real necessity from the military point of view for evacuation from the West Coast.
Life in a relocation center cannot possibly be pleasant. The evacuees are surrounded by barbed wire fences under the eyes of armed military police. They have suffered heavily in property losses; they have lost their businesses and their means of support. The State Legislatures, Members of the Congress, and local groups, by their actions and statements bring home to them almost constantly that as a people they are not really welcome anywhere. States in which they are now located have enacted restrictive legislation forbidding permanent resettlement, for example. The American Legion, many local groups, and city councils have approved discriminatory resolutions, going so far in some instances as to advocate confiscation of their property. Bills have been introduced which would deprive them of citizenship...
Furthermore, in the opinion of the evacuees the Government may not be excused for not having attempted to distinguish between the loyal and the disloyal in carrying out the evacuation.
Under such circumstances it would be amazing if extreme bitterness did not develop.
...The director of the Authority is striving to avoid, if possible, creation of a racial minority problem after the war which might result in something akin to Indian reservations. It is for these reasons primarily, I think, that he advocates the maximum individual relocation as against the maintenance of all ten relocation centers...2
Youngest brother of Dwight D. Eisenhower, he was appointed as the first Director of the WRA. He described conditions in the Arizona camps to be "as high as 130 degrees in summertime." Amid increasing doubts about the internment policy he was appointed to carry out, he resigned in June of 1942, telling his successor, Dillon Myer, "I can't sleep and do this job. I had to get out of it."2


That is cruel and inhumane.

 

Citadel,
I totally disagree. If the US government hadn't interned those of Japanese extraction, and there had then been a general insurrection/outbreak of widespread sabotage (like that planned by German POWs in Britain after D-Day)we would be looking at:
1) even more widespread racial discrimination, and probably murder.
2) People sitting here SIXTY years after the event asking why the US government hadn't interned them in the first place!
At the time it was seen as a sensible security precaution. You CAN'T impose modern "moral" sensitivities on something that happened SIX DECADES ago. What would YOU have done in Eisenhower's/Churchill's shoes?

Regards,
Gordon

 

I mean no disrespect to anyone who has posted in this thread, but what exactly is the intended purpose of this thread? To delegitimize the Allies?

To ask what is the greatest Allied atrocity as though there are countless Allied war crimes to sift through because Allied troops made a point of gunning down Axis children in ice cream parlors in the name of liberty is absurd.

Manzanar was not Babi Yar. Nagasaki was not the rape of Nanking. The Allied decision to bomb Nagasaki was based on the goal of winning the war, not on exterminating the Japanese. The same was not true of Babi Yar or Nanking. Or Dachau. I hope everyone is clear on the distinction.

[ 27. December 2003, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: Ahab ]

 

Wasn't it Kitchener who said, "All war is an atrocity"?

Yours,
Paul

 

[/QUOTE]what exactly is the intended purpose of this thread? To deligitimize the Allies?

I'm beginning to wonder myself.........

 

This is the question I have asked myself from the very first posting, which is why I didn't answer the thread yet.

What Geistforscher mentions, is hardly some kind of really bad war crime, and this can be interpreted in 2 ways:

a) He wants to collect every little thing the Allies have done wrong, to support "German" cause (this is a very popular method in today's Germany, not only by real nazis, but also moderate nationalists)
b) He states the Allies did nothing worse - exactly the opposite.

Anyway the thread starting posting seems to be nonsense, which is why the entire discussion had to turn confusing.

 

First off, I agree with the points raised by Gordon immediately after the following post.

If that were to happen to me, I would no doubt be deeply aggrieved and expect compensation from the government, as was awarded to such internees in 1948 and 1988.

I would not, however, count myself amongst the war’s millions of victims of atrocities who suffered and died elsewhere in the world during the same period.

Incidentally, while discussing the ‘cruel and inhumane’ treatment of Japanese-American internees, how many of them flung themselves onto electric fences to escape the misery of their incarceration?

 

I too have been watching this debate as it goes round and round seemingly without adding much of merit to our forum.

May I suggest that Mr Geistforscher possibly redirect to : -

http://www.fpp.co.uk/

Where this sort of discussion subject finds it's true home.

 

Agreed Martin!

And the site you mention is exactly the place to continue this discussion...

 

Looks a bit like the Knight Templar Discussion Forum - not much connection to the real world

 

Greenjacket... awarding someone only 1/10 of the value of their losses can not be seriously considered real reperations. Japanese-Americans were interned without rights due by the US constitution.

Historian... The fact of the matter is there is no documented case where any Japanese-Americans did spy for Japan or were caught in any act of treason. German or Italian Americans were not interned as the Japanese were. Does that mean acts of treason by these groups was less likely or should be considered less serious. There were plenty of Nazi sympathizers in the US at this time. In fact the Steuben society that I belong to meets in what was a hotbed of Nazi sympathizers back in the 30's.

The problem with this thread is that a serious discussion cannot take place because too many people only read viewpoints from one side of the conflict or otherand post with blinders on. It's absurd to think that atrocities weren't commited by every major armed beligerent nation in WW2. The difference is that Axis atrocities were not only more numerous but generally took place on a larger scale. That doesn't mean that allied atrocities did not happen. If you are not able to recall or remember any cases of allied atrocities in WW2 then maybe more reading and discussion is needed.

I have Canadian friends who consider the ill-supported raid and subsequent slaughter of Canadian troops at Dieppe an atrocity, and British friends who think Churchill's refusal to warn Coventry of impending destruction was an atrocity. Whether or not I agree doesn't matter. They are considered atrocities by others as was the entries on my list.

 

I think many would agree that war itself is an atrocity. Enough said.

 

Citadel,
You're a great one to accuse other people of only arguing from their own viewpoint.
When did Churchill refuse to warn Coventry? Fact is, most left-wing councils refused to implement Air-Raid Precautions for their own twisted ideological reasons. But when the bombs started falling, it was all Churchill's fault, naturally.
In Glasgow, the leading opponent of ARP pre-war was a councillor who refused to condone "warmongering". The day after the Luftwaffe visited Clydebank, guess who accused Churchill of not building enough shelters to "keep the working classes down"? The tragedy was, the same guy received an official honour for "services to the public" after the war!

I also asked you what YOU would have done in Roosevelt (I know I said Eisenhower!)or Churchill's shoes? Intern all enemy aliens till their loyalties can be proven, or run scared of the civil liberties brigade and let them run free?
Of course, if you got it wrong.......

Regards,
Gordon
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[ 01. January 2004, 07:13 PM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

 

oops! mea culpa!

 

I do not claim the reparations were adequate, nor do I suggest that the internment was constitutional. However, the very fact that the internees could be offered compensation for their losses (being of an monetary/financial nature) seems to demonstrate to me that it cannot be kept in company with events like Katyn, where the relatives of the victims could not possibly be satisfactorily compensated by any earthly means.

 

I would say there are several reasons why Germans and Italians were not interned in the US, as some were in Britain. Unlike the Japanese, both constituted sizeable parts of the establish community in many States and a number, especially the Italians, were in very influential positions, e.g. Fiorello LaGuardia. The influence of the, let’s say, Italian lobby was seen during the war with the amended and increased assistance the US gave and insisted upon for Italy.

Also, only the hardcore nazi and fascist elements were perceived as having fanatical tendencies, whereas the rank and file of Japan declared and demonstrated a belief in death before dishonour and devotion to their Emperor ‘god’. Hence it was perceived they would follow any ‘divine’ order received or perceived.

I have to say I can’t agree with your application of ‘atrocity’ which I find lose in the extreme. If a force takes a bunch of prisoners and machine guns them down, that’s an atrocity. If a group of civilians are herded into a barn and burnt alive, that’s an atrocity. If an operation is badly planned and/or badly executed, or, with the best intention and execution things go terribly wrong, that’s war. I take it the Japanese in America were allowed to return to the community and not confined to reservations?

No.9

[ 02. January 2004, 04:32 PM: Message edited by: No.9 ]