The unknown holocaust

war is a crime ,all war?....when the romans and goths stopped attila,when the allies made war on the nazis?...war is awful and civillians do die...no one happily gives up their sons to the battlefield...people grin and bear it because it must be done sometimes..or the young men of a nation can flee an invadeing army with their mothers and sisters i guess...of coures the results will be the same either way ...women and children cannot out run a battle hardened army

 

I don't understand what you are saying now.

Do we at least agree that since the stance towards rape is determined by culture and individual values, we may blame single soldiers for raping, even if it does "always happen"?

 

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I'm O.K. with putting the blame on the officers , after all they have
overwhelming powers over their men . individual acts will occurs ,
but if there is a group pattern then it's a command and discipline issue .
The usual question about the chain of command guilt
rears it's ugly head again :roll:


P.S. in fact , I think now , the more authoritarian the army the worst the
excesses... cause and effects...?

i'll let the cathaginians rest

 

in the armys of old blood lust ,rape and robbery was part of the compensation package for the masses of sweating soldiery...only in the last few centurys has this behaviour been constrained and for the most part only in the armys of western europe and their former colonys ie.anzaks and north america

 

Although efforts to restrain it have always been around. For example the 11th & 12th Centuries saw a lot of campaigning for soldiers not harming civilians.

 

Not as a rule; it mostly depended on the general. If the leader of the army had a sense of morals and discipline then his men would not be allowed to rape or plunder - and there were no restrictions on the cruelty of punishment in most armies.

 

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through history, horrors were used as negotiating tools ,
the accepted rule was than one city could negociate surrender up to the
final assault , when all bets were off , if the defence were breached ,the city
would be the soldiers prize .
discipline in an army is a management tool , always was ,
magnanimity to the vanquished a rarity .
sometimes a victor do not want to be magnanimous ,there was no doubt than
the eastern front was particulary horrific , especially to civilians
the wonder is than any germans were left alive.
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stalin relized he needed some ethnic germans to live in east germany

 

"History" is no entity, and there are definitely ages in which different rules and standards applied. It is true, though, that institutionalized mercy and humanity in wartime is a new development - of the late 19th century, in fact.

Before then, it must be remembered that many civilizations upheld moral standards as to the treatment of their enemies in defeat. Mostly this treatment was fairly humane to those considered equal ("civilized" as opposed to "barbarian") and much more ruthless to those considered different and inferior.

 

morals is also not an entity...what is moraly correct in our eyes would have no meaning to a roman or han dynasty comander...in fact our morality is meaningless to many cultures even today ..ie osama ,idi amin,pol pot

 

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Back to 1945 , eastern germany .
The fighting was prolonged and intense ,
the road to Berlin was through devastated lands , massacred population ,
destroyed villages and cities ,labor camps like auschwitz
the german treatment of russian prisonners and civilians had been widely
reported amongst the soviet troops , and the slogan was
" hunt the beast into it's lair "
Berlin was taken against last dich, ferocious , hopeless defense by an
enemy who had as a widely proclaimed program , the extermination and
enslavement of the russian people ,
now was pay back time ....... the germans got off lightly in my mind
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.Soviet magnanimity come off better than the german one
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one can only hope the horror of the eastern front is not visited apon the world again ,ever...

 

Of course, but what I am talking about here is "morals" in the sense of a code that defines one's behaviour. Having a moral code means that your actions are never arbitrary. All moral codes limit maltreatment of others, even if those "others" are a very small group.

The Nazis, perhaps. Do you truly believe that the killing of four million Germans, the rape and abuse of hundreds of thousands of others, and the uprooting of a further five million from the areas where their families had lived for hundreds of years, is not enough punishment for the Germans as a whole?

???

 

Is there such a thing as a people guilt , I don't knows .

it is a sound moral principle than one should reciprocate and give as one
recieve , the good and the bad .
further ,it was the second time in a generation than germany unleashed
world wars ,
to paraphase oscar wilde ...one world war is an accident , two smack of
carelessness !
:roll:
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P.S. the dots are for spacing purpose ! a first draft got canned !
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An eye for an eye? Is that really a sound moral principle? I believe that a person with a decent moral code will consider himself above avenging certain acts in kind, particularly if these acts were not committed against him as a person but against something as abstract as his "nation".

Ah, I have been wondering!

 

"An eye for an eye will make the world blind". I think it was Gandhi said that.

Trouble is Roel, this is where nationalism (and propaganda) steps in.
"Them dirty [insert slang term for a nation here] did [insert atrocity here] - I'm gonna make them pay!" is all too common.

 

sometimes its propaganda ..ie the huns are useing dead soldiers bodies to render into soap,rapeing all the nuns in belgium,ect...ww1 propaganda the germans are makeing lampshades from the skin of dead jews.and soap as well.......ww2 truth as it turns out......the british press printed so many untrue stories of german misdeeds in ww1 that many were loathe to belive the true stories comeing out of eastern europe in ww2.....a la the boy who cryed wolf ..

 

I concur with major woody about the heavy handed huns-bashing of WW1
the kaiser army wasn't none too tender but some of the stuff was ridiculous!
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As for an eye for an eye , it is sound , it's in the ammurabi code of law ,
the bible , carolingian law and mean proportional and finite punishment

some code like alfred's and norman law offer a cash equivalent as being
more valuable to the victim and more expensive to the perpetuator
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popular practice would be two eyes for one , for one tooth ,
the whole face
the principle invoked being principal plus interest plus some more !
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Don't forget that these were far harser times than nowdays. You should not judge the morals of two periods of history that have hundreds of years between them.

Also, another phrase the exists in the Bible is 'Love thy neighbour'.

 

while compassion is the saving grace of mankind ,
I for one would not tell a man who had his wife and kids murdered ,his
home city destroyed , his whole life crushed,
that he can just turn the page
and should be satisfied in a few leaders punishment .


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