Was Winston Churchill a War Criminal?

A German historian spoke on BBC Radio 4 this morning stating that many of the German civilian deaths from indiscriminate British bombing raids in WWII were unnecessary and made no military sense.

Winston Churchill's grandson denies this.

See: BBC News item

Overall, I think that the British night bombing campaign was a failure. It failed to force a German surrender by itself, which is what the British intended it to do, and also failed to seriously inhibit German production of war materials - since the German industry simply went underground or decentralised. Far from being cut back, German production kept increasing right up to 1945.

The British would have done better with a larger army than with a very large heavy bomber force.

With that in mind, killing all those German civilians was a mistake, because it failed to shorten the war, but wasn't a war crime - just a military strategy that failed.

 

Well, Yes and No....heh.

As to who started the war and who started the terror bombings the man is right.

To kill about ten times more German civilians than in the BoB bombings ( I think ), well, that is a harder question.He wanted to crush the Germans and as decided by the trio ( Churchill, FDR, Stalin ) Germany would become totally annihilated by total war.They had plans for taking Germans to elsewhere and turning the country into huge fields so Germany would never again start a war.
But in this sense I think Churchill was guilty of killing civilians unnecessary. Eye to eye turned to my one eye your ten eyes...

Then again he was one of the key figures in putting the nazi government down so ...like said it´s not so simple as there are two sides to the coin.

 

I heard years ago may-be 15 20 that Chirchill had a huge investment in Krupps....any one else know of this

 

sorry spelling mistake Churchill

 

If the Germans are to be condemned for the bombings of Guernica, Warsaw and many other cities, then yes, Churchill is a war criminal. The bombings may not have forced the Germans to surrender but it did contribute to causing chaos in the lives of the German people. A miniskew contribution but one nonetheless.

 

The Germans decided to wage a war against both civilians and soldiers. Although Rotterdam and Guernica were accidents, that made the British bombing perfectly 'legal.'

"...This is total war now, stripped of all protection."

 

Don´t forget the cossacks and other Russians who emigrated from Russia to escape communism after ww1 and what happened to them...All were returned to Stalin´s hands by the allied...

"At a meeting in Moscow in October 1944, Churchill, Eden readily agreed to Stalin’s demand that the Soviet expatriates should be sent back. They were afraid that if they did otherwise,then the Soviets might be reluctant to hand back British POW’s whom they had liberated from internment camps in eastern Germany.

In February 1945, Churchill and Roosevelt met Stalin at Yalta. An agreement was reached amongst the three that liberated Soviet citizens would be repatriated, although this was kept secret for the next two years. In fact it was only in 1972 that the official records became declassified. In return for the Anglo-American promise, Stalin pledged to hold free elections in liberated Poland as soon as possible. And it was on this basis that future repatriation were carried out: if they were not then Poland would have no democracy. Hindsight tells us, of course, that Stalin no more intended free elections in Poland than did Hitler, but Churchill and Roosevelt were impressed with his sincerity. Both were by this time rather senile.

In May 18,000 Cossacks under the German General von Pannwitz were tricked into being delivered into Soviet hands. For weeks and weeks they had been assured that they were not going to be handed over, and so they had gullibly agreed to being “transferred to another camp.”Inexplicably,500 German soldiers were handed over with the Cossacks. Pannwitz’s execution was announced in Pravda on 17 January 1947. The ordinary soldiers were sent to Siberia, for a minimum of ten years’ hard labour. Only one or two of the Germans have ever come back.

Eventually, the American government was forced to moderate its policy, so that only prisoners who had actually fought for the Nazis would have to be sent back. But of course, this was exactly the category of prisoner which had the most to fear from being repatriated. Early in 1946, the Americans repatriated their penultimate batch of internees from Dachau--ironically the site of a war-time concentration camp.Elaborate precautions did not prevent many attempts at suicide, six of them successful.

http://www.cossackweb.com/cossacks/repatr.htm
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Russian Repatriation
over 2 million Russians from Europe and the U.S. were sent back to Russia

2 kinds of repatriates:

civilians - 1.3m

had surrendered to Ger. against Stalin's orders
military groups - .7m

.5m joined German army to overthrow Stalin - were traiters, e.g. Gen. Vlasov's "Russian Liberation Army" for Hitler

many of 5m Cossacks in South Russia were used by Germans ag. Tito

50,000 Cossacks in south Austria - returned to Stalin by British

Croatian pro-fascist "Ustasha" (anti-communist Pavelic) vs. Tito - Croats killed 600,000 Serbs & Jews at Jasenovac death camp - killed with axes & clubs, bodies into Sava River to float by Serbian capital of Belgrade - 200,000 Croats killed at Bleiburg by Tito's Serbs

Belarus Brigade (1982 book Belarus Secret by John Loftus) - pro-Hitler Byelorussians who helped Hitler since 1941 - killed 250,000 Jews then switched to help Allies in 1944 on Western front - many recruited by U.S. mil intell - smuggled into U.S. - settled in South River, N.J. - became "freedom fighters" (Stalin did same - planted agents in flow of refugees to West - "Operation Omaha" dossiers compiled on possible agents)

Yalta definition of Soviet citizen excluded pre-1939 emigres - not repatriated

but Brit repatriated all Cossacks, incl old emigre Gen. Pannwitz & 18,000

Brit searched Drau Valley for fleeing Cossacks - 20,000 deported

most died in 10-yr labor camps, revealed in Solzhenitsin's '74 Gulag Archipelago

Med. commander Harold Alexander sought to help and coop w/ USSR

U.S. repatriated Russians from U.S. until suspended by Ike Oct. 1945

Ft. Dix, N.J., incident June 29 - 154 deported - 3 suicides, 7 injuries

led to investigation by Secy State Byrnes Aug. 9, but ff'd Yalta

Dec. 20 compromise - only Soviet citizens who actively collab'd w/ Germans to be repatriated, not civilian refugees

May 1947 - last repatriations from Europe

http://history.acusd.edu/gen/WW2Timeline/repatriate.html
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Nearly all of the fifty thousand Cossacks who were fortunate enough to escape with their lives into the Balkans, Turkey, Persia, Poland and China, left their homeland as organized army units.The Cossacks carried with them their State regalia, battle flags and archives.By far the greatest part of this group eventually settled in the Balkan countries and there, by hard work and perseverance, prospered and became substantial citizens again. Another part went farther, to Czechoslovakia and France; of this group many young men acquired a higher education and became professional men, also achieving considerable prosperity and renown. They retained their "Governments in Exile".
On May 28, 1945, twenty-one hundred and forty-six Cossack officers and generals, including the world famous cavalry leaders, Generals Krasnoff, Shkuro and Kiletch-Girey (all NOT SOVIET CITIZENS) , were, through a ruse, disarmed and carried in British cars and trucks to a neighboring town held by the Reds. There they were surrendered to the Red Army general, who immediately ordered them to stand trial for treason. Many of these Cossack leaders had never been nominally citizens and subjects of the Soviet Union, being the men who had left Russia in 1920, at the end of the civil war, and therefore could not be guilty of any treason. Some of these men were executed on the spot; the higher officers were subjected to mock trials at Moscow and were also executed. For example, General Krasnoff was hanged by a hook through the lower jaw, on a public square; this in the Twentieth Century in the capitol of the "most advanced nation of the world!" The bulk of this group was sent to slave labor camps in the Far North and Siberia, to suffer a slow and painful death in the hands of their tormentors.

http://www.armymuseum.ru/kaz1_e.html
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Well, the allied did not kill them, the Russians did, but it was as good as doing it themselves, I think.Poor bastards! Running away from Russia in the 1920´s and Churchill gave them back to Stalin like that..I mean they were innocent people, they had not fought for Nazi Germany or anything.Just like the jews, their only fault was being a Cossack....Just shows you that politics stink alot..

 

Well, if we take into consideration that Mr. Churchill was a man of war with a lot of guts and a lot of imagination then we have here another fater Hitler without funny mustach...

We should remember that Mr. Churchill came up with the idea of the E-boats in WWI, the "wolves with sheep desguise" and that provoked a toatl undiscriminate submarine campaign. That Mr. Churchill was a man very enthusiastic about bombing German cities with toxic gas and all kind of crazy operations. But his major crimes were the brutal bombing of German cities. But war is war and wars are brutal. Our peace-time morale does not fit into total war's morale.

 

Miniscule ? Well, maybe....

Interesting see what one or two other people have said about the bombing offensive, though.

'..It may well be that the estimated loss of 9 percent of our production capacity was amply balanced by our increased effort.
Our heaviest expense was in fact the elaborate defensive measures. In the Reich and in the western theatres of war the barrels of ten thousand antiaircraft guns pointed toward the sky. The same guns could well have been employed in Russia.. Had it not been for the air front over Germany, our defensive strength against tanks would have been doubled... Moreover, the antiaircraft force tied down hundreds of thousands of young soldiers. A third of the optical industry was busy producing gunsights for the flak batteries. About half of the electronics industry was engaged in producing radar and communications networks for defence against bombing.... the supply of our frontline troops with modern equipment remained far behind that of the Western armies..a serious shortage of army communications equipment developed.. further development of such devices ( as walkie-talkies and sound-ranging artillery apparatus ) had to be neglected in favour of antiaircraft weaponry'

Speer : Inside The Third Reich pp278/279

''...the air situation should be considered one of the most critical phases of the war...'

Goebbels : Diaries May 28 1943

Bombing in the 1940's was undeniably a crude and blunt instrument but one can be entitled to wonder what Germany could have 'achieved' if strategic bombing hadn't happened at all....

 

The question is, which was more effective, daylight strategic bombing or nighttime carpet bombing? As this topic is focusing on the British effort, I am sure we all agree that night bombing did not achieve the results enough to put a significant impact on German war production. What you are referencing is thoughts on daylight strategic bombing of which I would agree. My thoughts were on the night time bombing. I should have clarified.

 

If the 9 percent figure is taken as being accurate, then the daylight 'strategic' offensive cannot have remotely succeeded in its' aim, surely ?

 

A comprehensive analysis of the impact of the Allied strategic bombing offensive must also include a review of the need for the Luftwaffe to deploy fighter units for defense against bombers rather than for frontline operations or other air operations. For example ...

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wwii/ce19.htm

USAF Museum: WWII Combat Europe; Target Berlin

Berlin, the capital of Germany, was selected as a prime target for the AAF, not only for its industrial importance, but because it was believed the Luftwaffe would react in force to defend it, suffering heavy losses in the process. The first attack was made on March 4, 1944, but only 29 bombers reached target because of weather.

Two days later, 660 AAF heavy bombers reached Berlin in the face of tremendous opposition; 69 bombers and 11 escorting fighters were lost--the AAF claimed 179 German planes destroyed. The AAF returned on March 8 and 462 bombers, escorted by 174 P-51s over the target, bombed the Erkner bearing factory; again the Luftwaffe lost heavily.

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wwii/ce25.htm

USAF Museum: WWII Combat Europe; Normandy Beachhead

The first Allied amphibious troops hit the beaches of Normandy at 6:30 a.m. Constant air cover was flown over the vast sea armada and the assault beaches, and only three Luftwaffe aircraft were sighted the first day. For the next several weeks while the Allies strengthened and consolidated their positions on the ground, the AAF and RAF flew close support for the beachheads, carried supplies, and bombed and strafed German supply routes to the Normandy area. Even the heavy bombers were used for tactical rather than their traditional strategic operations to carpet-bomb German front line areas.

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/wwii/ce36.htm

USAF Museum: WWII Combat Europe; AAF Aerial Supremacy

With suitable bomber targets becoming increasingly scarce, the AAF instituted a program in February for its fighters to cover Germany at low level, strafing targets of opportunity. Because of a shortage of pilots and fuel, the Luftwaffe usually held its own fighters on the ground except for intercepting AAF bombers. Consequently, AAF fighter pilots were able to roam across Germany with almost complete freedom from attack by enemy planes. Results of this type of operation were often devastating. Every conceivable type of target, such as trains, airfields, fuel storage tanks, barges, and even individual military staff cars, were pinpointed and destroyed.



[ 28. November 2002, 05:23 AM: Message edited by: Crapgame ]

 

True, and many civilian targets and even individual civilians were 'strafed' too. The old 'World At War' documentary showed unforgettable footage of a solitary horse-and-cart in a field vanishing in a storm of .50s....

 

As I see the Swastika-pop-up's are away...here we go again.

As for the purely academic discussion of what german resources had been tied down by the W_Allied SBC, take all that Reichsmarks, fighters, Hitleryouth AAA-helpers and transfer it to the East Front...and invest all those technique, men, US-$ and Pound Sterlings put into the SBC to the Soviet War effort. How many T-34s are worth one Lancaster?

As for "war crimes", espec. strafing civilians:

"Atrocities were committed by both sides. That fall [1944, A.W.] our fighter group received
orders from the Eighth Air Force to stage a maximum effort. Our seventy-five Mustangs
were assigned an area of fifty miles by fifty miles inside Germany and ordered to strafe
anything that moved. The objective was to demoralize the German population. Noboby
asked our opinion about whether we were actually demoralizing the survivors or maybe
enraging them to stage their own maximum effort in behalf of the Nazi war effort. We
weren't asked how we felt zapping people. It was a miserable, dirty mission, but we all
took off on time and did it. If it occurred to anyone to refuse to participate (nobody
refused, I recall) that person would have probably been court-martialed. I remember
sitting next to **** [name deleted A.W.] at a briefing and whispered to him: 'If we're gonna do things like
this, we sure as hell better make sure we're on the winning side.' That's still my view."

Cheers,

 

One can't help feeling that if such a 'transfer' had been made we'd all be speaking Russian today but maybe this is one for the 'What If?' thread...

 

With regards to the initial question of was Churchill a war crinimal....Can the winning side ever be war crinamls?

Has any major conflict produced a war crinimal on the winning side? Tried, convicted and sentenced?

 

Funny, you quoted many a Nazi at Nuremburg!

 

Probably smae thing running though Milosovic and Tojos minds at times too???

Suppose came close with My Lai..spelling...LT. Caghil was it?? own judging own.. but thats another forum another place...